NASA EO-1
image of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands taken in 2009. The best anchorage
is off
Direction Island at the NE rim of the atoll, with excellent deep water
access for larger logistical vessels. The central lagoon is too shallow
for military use, and environmentally fragile (NASA).

Executive Summary

This study is another in the continuing series of publications
exploring strategic problems and possible solutions for the Australian
Defence Force (ADF). It is specifically focussed on determining optimal
basing arrangements for Royal Australian Air Force and Royal Australian
Navy assets in the North Western Region of Australia’s strategic
interest, the Indian Ocean region.

Given the considerable cost of basing construction and long term
maintenance, determining an optimal basing arrangement is not a trivial
problem. Poor choices would impose serious constraints on the ability
of the ADF to operate in the Indian Ocean and deny options in
supporting United States alliance commitments, while incurring
unnecessary and large expenditures of resources during a period of
fiscal challenge, coinciding with a period during which the ADF force
structure sorely needs to be recapitalised.

Given the importance of
this strategic problem, the study explores the full range of critical
problems which must be addressed in producing the best possible
outcome, in terms of long term capability and flexibility.

The central
conclusion this study draws is that a deep and
comprehensive upgrade of the basing infrastructure in the Pilbara and
Kimberley is essential to permit Australia to maintain its strategic
position in the region, safeguard the economically important energy and
resource industries of the North-West, and that further important
strategic advantages can be gained by the construction of modern
hardened basing infrastructure in the Cocos (Keeling) Islands and
on Christmas Island.

Moreover, there are other important strategic and political payoffs in
such basing upgrades. These include enabling and supporting “Military
Operations Other Than War”, better supporting Australia's principal
ally the United States, and in directly facilitating the growth of
Australian Industry by providing dual use capabilities in key basing
locations.

Of equal importance, basing upgrades will require that the fragile
environment in this geographical region be respected and carefully
addressed in any base upgrade or new construction planning.

Introduction

The changing
strategic environment in Asia is producing deep force structure focus
and posture changes in the United States military, and that of many
regional nations. Mostly this is a byproduct of the remarkable speed,
scale and scope of China's military capability growth, but also a
byproduct of a concurrent parallel growth pattern in capabilities
across Asia, in response to China's growth. In many respects, this
represents incremental escalation of the “creeping arms race” which has
characterised the military environment in Asia since the end of the
Cold War.

Australia can no longer assume that these changes are not relevant to
her strategic position, and the Australian Defence Force Posture Review
(ADFPR) which is to report in early 2012 is an important step forward
in aligning Australia's posture to a changing region.

This study explores the problem of determining an optimal basing
arrangement for Royal Australian Air Force and Royal Australian Navy
assets in the Indian Ocean region, in considerably greater depth and
detail than is feasible in an effort such as the ADFPR, which by its
nature is constrained.

Given the considerable cost of basing construction and long term
maintenance, determining an optimal basing arrangement is not a trivial
problem. Poor choices would impose serious constraints on the ability
of the ADF to operate in the Indian Ocean, deny options in supporting
United States alliance commitments, and incur unnecessary and large
expenditures of resources during a period of fiscal difficulty, when
the ADF force structure is being recapitalised.

Therefore, this study aims to explore the full range of critical
problems which must be addressed in producing the best possible
outcome, in terms of long term capability and flexibility.

The strategic context is explored in detail, both in the regional
context, and in the context of the exceptional growth seen in the
Pilbara and Kimberley. The historical background to Australian, United
States and British basing in the Eastern Indian Ocean is surveyed.

Strategic considerations for basing in the Pilbara, Kimberley and
Indian Ocean Offshore Territories are explored and analysed, and best
outcomes identified. Specific environmental and operational problems
for key sites are analysed, including critical environmental
constraints.

Finally, the ADFPR Interim Report recommendations are tested against
the findings of this study.

Additional reference material is included in a series of Annexes,
including a discussion of airbase hardening problems and options, and
extant United States island basing arrangements.

The
Strategic Importance of the Indian Ocean SLOCs

The
industrialisation of Asia began with Japan during the 1920s, and has
been an accelerating process as South Korea, Taiwan, and most recently
mainland China have pursued industrialisation, with India following.
These
Asian nations collectively now account for much of global manufacturing
activity, in areas ranging from heavy industries such metal processing
and shipbuilding, down to the operation of high density
microelectronic foundries.

A key characteristic of industrial economies is that they are
insatiable consumers of energy and
raw materials. This reality was observed first during the
industrialisation of
Europe, then during the industrialisation of North America, and most
recently,
during the industrialisation of Asia.

The consequence of this is high per capita energy consumption
in most if not all industrialised nations, spread across
transportation, industrial manufacturing, and consumer markets.

Other consequences of industrialisation are a strong drive to
individual ownership of
housing and automobiles. In turn this yields higher energy consumption
and thus increased demand over time as a result.

It is often not well understood that one of the major motivations
underpinning the Great
War was intensive competition over colonial raw materials and energy,
between the
established colonial powers, and latecomers on the European continent.

The Second World War, while most commonly explained as a clash between
diametrically opposed ideologies,
was motivated in a large part by German and Japanese demand for raw
materials and energy, controlled at that time by the Western powers and
Soviets. The German drive to Stalingrad, and the Japanese occupation of
South East Asia, were both intended to secure energy supplies.

The grand geostrategic plays of the Cold War involved the West and
Warsaw Pact nations
fighting across the developing world. Underpinning these ostensibly
ideologically motivated conflicts was a contest for the control of key
naval chokepoints, and very frequently, access to local energy or
mineral resources. While Soviet rhetoric was centred in ideology,
practical strategic choices were clearly driven by other agendas, as
demonstrated by the Gorshkov doctrine, which clearly stated that “the
interdiction of merchant shipping and its associated escorts is the
most important constituent part of the efforts of a fleet aimed at
undermining the military/economic potential of the enemy” [1].

The three great conflicts of twentieth century were
thus at the most fundamental level the result of competition over
access to
energy and resources.

Figure 1. Primary Indian Ocean
SLOCs (C.
Kopp).

It may be argued, that the Indian Ocean is at this time carrying more
maritime
traffic than any other water body of its size. Much of this traffic
comprises oil tankers and LNG tankers travelling to and from Persian
Gulf terminals, enroute to Europe, and importantly, the industrial
economies of the Far East.

Rodrigue's detailed study of the global shipping infrastructure shows
that Asia is now
the predominant destination for Middle Eastern petroleum/gas product.
Even one decade ago Asian consumption of Middle Eastern oil was of the
order of
twice that of the European Union [2].

Most of the crude oil and LNG produced in the Persian Gulf and destined
for Asia is shipped through the
Straits of Hormuz, past the southern tip of the Indian subcontinent,
and then via the Straits of Malacca, Sunda or Lombok in the Indonesian
archipelago, and thereafter via lanes in the South China Sea, or lanes
east of
the Philippines, to terminals in China, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan.

Container ships carrying manufactured goods from Asia to Europe and
Africa will also traverse these shipping lanes, as the shortest great
circle path is the cheapest route in terms of fuel consumption, a major
cost factor. Minerals and
ores mined in Africa and destined for Asia will also travel via the
Indian Ocean sea lanes.

These traffic patterns in shipping will persist for at least two
decades, until Persian Gulf oil and gas reserves are exhausted and
other regions become dominant POL and LNG suppliers to Asian economies.

Persian Gulf oil reserves have crossed the “peak oil” point and these
oilfields are now declining in output, as they are progressively
exhausted. Recent
and well publicised discoveries in the Americas of oil and gas in
offshore locations, and
onshore oil and gas bearing shales, could well see a return to the
global dominance of the Americas as the world's biggest energy
producing region [3].

Importantly, in situ known reserves are not a measure of immediate or
near term production
capacity, and until these discoveries are further developed, the
Persian Gulf will remain a critical energy producing region, with all
of the strategic consequences that entails.

Asia's lack of self-sufficiency in fossil fuels is a pivotal
strategic vulnerability for all of these nations, but especially China,
where the nation's sheer size drives up the demand for energy to fuel
its transportation infrastructure, and military machine.

China has some
domestic oil reserves in East Turkmenistan, and is contesting access to
some seabed reserves across the South China Sea. China is also
initiated construction of the world's largest Fischer-Tropsch synthetic
fuel plant,
intended to use coal as a feedstock [4].

For the foreseeable future
China will remain heavily dependent upon oil and LNG imports, with Iran
and likely Australia key LNG suppliers. At this time more than 50% of
China's oil imports arrive via the Indian Ocean, from Saudi Arabia,
Iran and Angola. Current projections suggest that two thirds of China's
oil consumption will be imports by 2030, while currently half is
imported [5][6].

The unavoidable strategic reality is that any nation or alliance which
can
control the sea lanes of the Indian Ocean can hold much of Asia
hostage, including China. Control of the western Indian Ocean closes
the chokepoint at the Arabian Sea, while control of the eastern Indian
Ocean closes the chokepoints in the Indonesian archipelago.

The means via which the chokepoints at the eastern and western
extremities of the
Indian Ocean might be closed are manifold: by coastal missile
batteries, land based air
power, submarines, surface warships, naval mines or some combination of
these measures, with much the same strategic impact. The flow of
crude oil and LNG can be constricted, controlled or completely halted
by the controlling party.

In historical terms, the Royal Navy was the first to hold a dominant
position in the Indian
Ocean, displaced during the Cold War by the US Navy replenishing from
Diego Garcia in the British Indian Ocean Territories, and the Soviet
Voenno-Morskii Flot operating from Goa in India. The Soviets long
sought a land accessible port in the region, but failed to secure one
[7].

Reflecting the strategic importance of the Indian Ocean, China has
invested heavily in “special relationships” with both Pakistan and
Burma, and has actively cultivated Iran despite the political risks
involved. The is frequently described as the “String of Pearls”
strategy, whereby a chain of bases is built along China's most critical
strategic SLOCs.

Burma has seen upgrades to its airfields and ports, paid for by
China, well in excess of any domestic needs. More recently, China
commenced construction of an oil and LNG terminal at Kyuakpya in Burma,
in the Bay of Bengal, connected by pipeline to Kunming in China. This
facility will reduce
the recurring shipping cost, but also bypass the eastern chokepoint
[8].

Reports emerged in 2011 suggesting that China may seek naval
basing in Pakistan, at the deep water port of Gwadar in Baluchistan, a
former enclave of Oman purchased by Pakistan in 1958. The port was
subjected to a major upgrade in recent years and is capable of
accommodating vessels with a draft of up to 14 metres [9] [10].

India has always maintained a strong naval and maritime patrol
capability, intended in part to blockade Pakistan in time of war. India
has upgraded facilities in the Andaman Islands, to extend its
footprint. It recently ordered new P-8I Poseidon LRMP/ASW aircraft in
the US, abandoning a long established relationship with Russian
suppliers.

There can be little doubt at this time that competition for control of
the Indian Ocean is now well established.

A Strategic
Perspective on the Indian Ocean

The greatest challenge Australia must confront
in coming decades will be maintaining a secure strategic position in
the Asia-Pacific region. The industrialisation and economic growth of
Asia is an ongoing process which will not cease in the foreseeable
future. The inevitable byproduct of economic growth will be ongoing
high military capital equipment investments across Asia.

The defacto unregulated supply
of Russian and Chinese built high technology weapons, which are sold
both for profit
and strategic influence, creates an environment where any nation in
Asia, or elsewhere, can
procure almost any advanced system, and the digital technology employed
in the construction of such systems removes
most if not all of the training and support impediments which hampered
the
effectiveness of Soviet era weapons during the Cold War, and immediate
post Cold War period [11].

An important aspect of the military modernisation of Asia has been a
significant increase in the effective operational reach of weapon
systems.

To emphasise this point, a Kilo class SSK
with a cruise missile armament is not a reverse engineered Romeo class
U-boat, and
a new-build Sukhoi Su-35S Flanker with F-111 class range is not a 200
nautical mile radius MiG-21 Fishbed or clone
thereof.

Through most of the Cold War period distance protected Australia from
most
capabilities deployed in Asia. This is much less the case today -
any number of weapon systems deployed in Asia can now cross Australia's
sea-air
gap with no difficulty, and strike at military installations,
infrastructure and northern population centres.

It is now inevitable that the coming decades will be a period of
strategic competition across
Asia, involving nascent China and India, smaller nations across Asia,
and the United States. Much of this competition will be driven by
access to energy, be it in situ
seabed reserves, or SLOCs employed for importing energy from the Middle
East and Africa.

The intensity of this competition should not be underestimated.
In September of 2011, an editorial in a major Chinese Communist Party
newspaper, the Global Times, stated: “the
South China Sea is the best place for China to wage wars” as “of
the
more than 1,000 oil rigs there, none belongs to China; of the four
airfields in the Spratly Islands, none belongs to China; once a war is
declared, the South China Sea will be a sea of fire. Who will suffer
the most from a war? Once a war starts there, the Western oil companies
will flee the area, who will suffer the most?”.[12]

Since the end of the Cold War, Australia has had the indulgence of not
having to
confront the risk of a high intensity regional conflict. The
consequence of this is that Australia's
Defence planning drifted into a “comfort zone” where minimal force
structure and infrastructure, geared around Indonesia's capabilities,
became the accepted norm.

The use of Indonesia's capabilities as a force structure benchmark
remains a common predilection in Canberra Defence circles, in practice,
even if public statements claim otherwise. This has been, in every
respect, a mistake, as Indonesia is not a representative example of the
uptake of advanced Russian and Chinese weapons technology in Asia. It
does however provide a justification for minimising capability and
avoiding proper short, medium and long term planning choices especially
in force structure planning.

As much as the idea of Australia being a niche or boutique provider of
specialised capabilities, such as Special Forces or airlift, to United
States led coalition forces may be appealing in some circles, it leads
to a deep distortion of planning priorities and loss of focus. One
parliamentarian remarked to this author, that “...becoming
America's Gurkhas will do nothing for Australia's strategic position,
or improve America's strategic posture in the Indo-Pacific region”.

To properly and robustly address the changing strategic environment
will require considerable
thought, much planning, and careful investment, both in capabilities
and infrastructure.

The determination of what investment is appropriate must reflect
strategic needs, as well as Australia's assets and vulnerabilities in
the Indian Ocean region.

Western
Australia and the Indian Ocean

Western
Australia and the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, then British and now an
Australian offshore territory, played an important role during the
Second World War, as a staging area and basing area for air and
naval operations across South East Asia.

Western Australia was a critical strategic asset during that
period. It was also an asset with few vulnerabilities, as the
North-West was very
sparsely populated with an economy dominated by agriculture,
specifically cattle stations.

RAAF and naval basing in the Pilbara and Kimberley regions were the
only significant targets the Japanese could damage, as there were no
assets of strategic economic
importance in the state.

That was 70 years in the past. At this time is the North-West has
become one of Australia's most valuable economic assets and sources
of export revenue, with a growing population.

Western Australia has become a major centre for the resource industry,
on a scale without precedent. The state is a major exporter of iron
ore, oil/condensate and LNG, gold, nickel, alumina, diamonds,
manganese, chromite, tantalum, lithium, copper, vanadium and rare
earths. These are strategically important raw materials and valuable
exports from Western
Australia. [13][14].

Commodity

AUD
Billion

Iron Ore

$57.3

Crude Oil and
Condensate

$12.4

LNG

$8.7

Gold

$8.2

Nickel

$4.6

Alumina

$4.0

Others

$6.0

Total

$101.2

Table 1.
Western
Australia’s mineral and petroleum resources in order of value for
2010–11 (Department of Mines and Petroleum, Government of Western
Australia).

Iron ore has been a major export from the Pilbara region, for many
decades, and the known reserves are expected to last for decades.
Decades of sustained infrastructure
development and heavy industrial manufacturing, especially
shipbuilding, have seen
strong and ongoing demand in Asia, especially China.

The Kimberley region is claimed to produce almost a third of global
diamond production, and is often regarded to be the largest single
supplier globally. The Kimberley region is also home to other mineral
mining operations, and the Ord river irrigation scheme supports
tropical crop farming.

Without any doubt the jewel in the crown of the North-Western economy
is however the gas
and oil industry.

The first major oilfield in the North-West was opened on Barrow Island,
near Karratha,
and peaked in production output during the 1970s, yielding mainly light
crude oil and some gas.

During the early 1980s, Woodside Petroleum
developed the North Rankin A gasfield, using an offshore platform,
seabed pipeline and large LNG production facility on the Burrup
Peninsula, north of Karratha.

It was followed in 1995 by the Goodwyn A
platform, which routes its production output to the North Rankin A
platform, and then to Karratha.

WA Petroleum (WAPET), later subsumed by
its parent Chevron, is now developing the Gorgon gasfield, with a major
LNG facility under construction on Barrow Island. It is being followed
by the Chevron Wheatstone project, which will ship gas from a platform
northwest of Barrow Island to an LNG plant under construction near
Onslow.

Figure 7. (via Department of Mines and Petroleum,
Government of
Western Australia)

Current planned production rates for these facilities are of
the order of 50 million tonnes of LNG annually, with Wheatstone alone
having expansion potential to 25 million tonnes annually. These
production rates are well in excess of Malaysian and Indonesian LNG
production, and will rival the production rate of Qatar, at
this time the leading global LNG exporter.

The North-West Shelf gas and oil industry is a major national export
revenue earner, and enables a range of other industries, such as
ammonia production and alumina refining. A substantial proportion of
Western Australia's electricity, used by industry and residential
consumers, is generated from North-West Shelf gas.

The gas and oil industry are of enormous strategic value, but also
present direct and indirect strategic vulnerabilities.

An opponent intending to damage Australia's economy, or the economy of
any nation heavily dependent upon imports from Australia, could produce
significant effect by stopping LNG and condensate exports, an effect
exacerbated by the flow-on effect of other industries in Western
Australia which depend on gas supply to operate. Closing down
North-West Shelf gas production closes down alumina production, and gas
supply to manufacturing and residential users in Perth.

Lesser but still significant damage could be inflicted by threatening
or interdicting SLOCs, thus preventing export product from the mining
and gas/oil industries from reaching its destinations, mostly in Asia.

In strategic terms Australia is thus presented with a confluence of
growing
strategic exposure due to the increase in the economic importance of
the North-West, while increasing strategic competition over the Indian
Ocean and its critical SLOCs increases the strategic importance of the
North-West for siting military basing infrastructure, especially
airfields.

It is critical to observe that the LNG infrastructure in the
North-West Shelf region is highly vulnerable to attack using Precision
Guided Munitions, which have proliferated widely across Asia over the
last two decades.

LNG storage tanks, when full or near full, store
energy comparable to that in a tactical or strategic nuclear warhead,
albeit not released as quickly.

Nevertheless, an armour piercing,
concrete piercing or shaped charge cruise missile warhead could easily
penetrate the shell of such a tank and cause an uncontrollable fire.
Other infrastructure, such as offshore platforms, LNG trains,
condensate scrubbing and storage facilities, and LPG plant, is also
vulnerable.

A major concern historically, with uncontrolled fires in such
facilities
is the BLEVE (Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapour Explosion) which is not
unlike a Fuel Air Explosive (FAE) bomb in effect, levelling buildings
and tearing apart infrastructure, while causing flash burns and fires.
This can significantly increase the damage footprint of a fire in a
petrochemical facility.

The radar contrast of these large facilities, constructed with steel
and concrete, is sufficiently good that pilots
used same as navigation references even thirty years ago.

The regional proliferation of modern submarines, armed with ASCMs, and
often LACMs, means that any nation with the motive could inflict
significant damage upon the North-West Shelf infrastructure with one or
two
SSK sorties. Moreover, if the perpetrators did not admit the
attack, they could be very difficult to identify.

More overt, but no less difficult to defeat would be modern aircraft
armed with
ASCMs or LACMs. Later models of the Sukhoi Flanker flown from any
number of sites in the Indonesian archipelago have the reach to hit
these targets. LRMP aircraft and tanker supported bombers could also
strike
from the Asian continent [15][16].

China's intended deployment of multiple aircraft carriers adds an
additional consideration to this problem. While the intended air wing
composition of these vessels is yet to be seen, and thus their intended
role is yet to be understood, changes in the composition of such an air
wing to provide a robust force projection capability could be effected
in a small number of years. At this time the yet to be understood role
of China's carrier battle groups adds considerable uncertainty to the
strategic equation in the short, medium and long term.

More than often any mention of such vulnerabilities
in the Australian defence debate typically elicits arguments about the
motives and agendas of regional
nations, inevitably concluding that India, China, Indonesia and other
nations have no immediate motive to attack, and therefore the
vulnerability should be ignored.

Unfortunately, the reality of past conflicts is that
neutral nations and non-participants have been attacked for any number
of reasons. War materiel, such as energy products,
minerals and metals, have been “fair game” on the high seas, in times
of war, regardless of the flag flown. it is unfortunate that in times
of
conflict, neutrality is not an effective defence, and motives for
attacks range from
strategic necessity, through intimidation, to simple spite.

The unavoidable conclusion is that Australia will need to develop the
capability to deny other nations opportunities to launch attacks upon
the Western Australian economic infrastructure, and opportunities to
interfere with
shipping of resource industry products from Western Australia.

Australia's
Indian Ocean Offshore Territories

Australia's two
Indian Ocean offshore territories, the Cocos (Keeling) Islands and
Christmas Island are both valuable strategic assets.

Neither island territory has been a major feature of the ongoing
defence policy debate, or in recent media focus, until Christmas Island
became home to an immigration detention facility, and public statements
were recently made about increased Defence use of the Cocos (Keeling)
Islands.

Discovered in 1609, the Cocos (Keeling) Islands were initially a
privately owned
asset, granted to the Clunies-Ross family in perpetuity by Britain in
1886, with jurisdiction transferred to Australia in 1955, and the
Clunies-Ross family losing control of the islands by the late 1970s.
The economy was since initial colonisation based on palm tree
plantations, but more recently eco-tourism, especially for divers, has
become prominent.

The Cocos (Keeling) Islands are in geological terms a horseshoe shaped
coral atoll
situated on top of an extinct volcanic seamount, itself part of a
submerged
mountain range. The central lagoon is very shallow, and unusable for
warships without deep dredging. Like other similar atolls, Diego
Garcia in the British Indian Ocean Territories being a good example,
average elevation above sea level is very low, and usable surface area
both limited, and broken into multiple islands and islets.

The largest
two islands surrounding the atoll, both inhabited, are the West Island
or Brown's West
Island, and Home Island in the north-east of the atoll. The total land
area of the atoll is only 14 square kilometres, almost exactly half the
land area of Diego Garcia, and much is covered with a former but no
longer maintained commercial
palm tree plantation. The local environment is typical of tropical
coral atolls in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, and is home to a wide
variety of marine flora and fauna.

Christmas Island was discovered in 1643, and settled by the
Clunies-Ross family in the late 1880s, at which time they established a
phosphate mine. The island was transferred from British to Australian
jurisdiction in 1957 – 1958, with Singapore being paid compensation for
lost earnings through phosphate mining.

The
Christmas Island economy was
dominated by phosphate mining until 1987, upon which most revenue was
produced by a casino resort operated between 1993 and 1998. The resort
is now active again as a tourist destination. Christmas Island has been
repeatedly the focus of media attention, initially over casino
operations, then the MV Tampa asylum seeker controversy, and most
recently, the immigration detention facility established at a cost of
AU$400 million, with a AU$30 million annual running cost, according to
Amnesty International.

Figure 13. Map of the Christmas
Island (Central Intelligence
Agency)

Unlike the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Christmas Island is a substantial
volcanic
island with a total land area of 135 square kilometres, of which much
is elevated 200 to 300 metres above sea level, with steep cliffs along
much of the coastline.

The Geoscience Australia summary states: “The island is
the summit of a submarine mountain, which rises steeply from sea level
to a central plateau. The plateau reaches heights of up to 361 metres
and consists mainly of limestone and layers of volcanic rock.
Surrounding the island is a narrow tropical reef which plunges steeply
to the ocean floor. Within 20 metres of the shoreline, you can find
some of the steepest drop-offs in the world reaching a depth of about
500 metres within about 200 metres beyond the edge of the reef.”

Much of Christmas Island is covered with rainforest, and the long term
geographical
isolation has led to the evolution of a wide range of endemic species
of
plant and wildlife, including a number of endangered species. The
island's ecology is in considerable difficulty, detailed further. In
geological terms Christmas Island is similar to Guam, but about one
quarter of the size of the latter.

The
Pilbara and Kimberley during the Second World War

In geostrategic
terms, Western Australia provides the ADF or an ally such as the United
States, a major advantage in providing secure land accessible basing
locations capable of covering the eastern Indian Ocean
chokepoints in the Indonesian archipelago, and South-East Asia.
Moreover, Christmas Island
and the Cocos (Keeling) Islands provide valuable Forward Operating Base
(FOB)
locations for LRMP/ASW/ASuW aircraft, submarines and strike aircraft,
as well as diversion runways for
long range maritime strike operations deep into the Indian Ocean.

During the Second World War, a
chain of airfields constructed across
the Pilbara and Kimberley regions were used for exactly this purpose,
including major airfields at RAAF Learmonth (Potshot) and RAAF
Corunna
Downs in the Pilbara, and RAAF Truscott in the Kimberley.

Figure 16. Consolidated
B-24D-53-CO Liberator
S/N 42-40369 “Shady Lady” of 528th BS, 380th BG,
stranded on a salt pan
on the Anjo Peninsula in August, 1943. Until RAAF B-24 squadrons
reached full strength, the 380th BG was the mainstay of the deep strike
effort in the theatre. The depicted aircraft is unusual for two
reasons. The first is that it was an in theatre modified B-24D with a
Consolidated A6A nose turret retrofitted in
Townsville, and the ventral ball turret replaced with a pair of .50 cal
guns. The second reason is the circumstance
of the photograph. This aircraft was flown as part of an unescorted 12
aircraft long range strike from Fenton in the Northern Territory,
against the critical POL refinery and harbour in Balikpapan, Borneo, on
the 13th August, 1943. These sixteen hour duration raids involved low
altitude bombing and strafing of targets, at ranges similar to the well
known Ploesti raids flown from North Africa. With fuel depleted, “Shady
Lady” attempted a landing on a salt pan, but the soft surface caused
the nosewheel to collapse. The crew were rescued by local Aboriginal
people and Benedictine monks from the Drysdale mission, who later
assisted with moving repair crews and components to the site, so the
aircraft could be repaired and flown out [17] (US Air Force).

RAAF and US Army Air
Corps aircraft, including B-24 Liberator heavy bombers, attacked
coastal targets and Japanese shipping across the region from these
bases, with RAAF Truscott and Corunna Downs used
as Strategic Forward Operating Bases (SFOB).

RAAF Truscott, still in use for commercial operations as Mungalalu
Truscott Airbase, was built on the Anjo Peninsula in 1944 to
replace the inadequate airfield at Drysdale station. It was used as a
staging base for long range B-24 raids against targets in Java and
Borneo, as well as ASW patrols, and RAAF Spitfire LF.VIII fighter
squadrons rotated through the base to provide defensive cover.

RAAF Corunna Downs, abandoned since the 1940s, was built
as Strategic Forward Operating Base for B-24 strikes into Java and
Sumatra. Located near Marble Bar, it was the largest bomber base in
Western Australia.

The primary strike force available between early 1943 and early 1945
was the USAAC 380th Bomb Group, comprising the 528th,
529th, 530th, and
531st Bombardment Squadrons, all under RAAF operational
control. The
380th was supplanted upon its departure to the Philippines
in
early
1945, by 12SQN, 21SQN, 23SQN, 24SQN,
25SQN, 99SQN and 102SQN RAAF equipped with B-24J/L/M Liberators.
Corunna Downs and Truscott were frequently used to stage 380th
BG B-24s
based at Darwin, and later 25 SQN B-24s based at RAAF Cunderdin,
and 23 SQN, 24 SQN B-24s based in the Northern Territory [18].

Onslow, located between Exmouth and Karratha, and currently planned to
become a major LNG processing site, was the location of a major naval
fuel
oil and aviation fuel depot, which supported Learmonth/Potshot
and Corunna Downs [19].

RAAF Learmonth was constructed initially as a fighter base
to protect the US Navy submarine replenishment facility at Exmouth,
designated Potshot, but also hosted bomber deployments. Exmouth
is now home to the Harold E. Holt Naval Communication Station
which provides VLF relay capability, and RAAF Learmonth was
redeveloped into the current RAAF bare base.

Fremantle became a major logistical hub, and staging port for naval
units. Perth hosted numerous training and logistical units, and a base
for Catalinas carrying mail and passengers across the Indian Ocean, at
Crawley on the Swan River, adjacent to the University of Western
Australia campus. Less
known is that a number of US Navy maritime patrol squadrons equipped
with PBYs rotated through the Crawley base, providing ASW coverage of
the Fremantle / Perth area.

The primary military
airfield in close proximity to Perth was RAAF Cunderdin, which hosted
RAAF “City of Perth” 25 SQN B-24L/M Liberators, P-40 Kittyhawks, and
some USAAC B-24s
tasked with LRMP/ASW duties. A major airfield was constructed for USAAC
operations at Middle Swan late in the war, now Caversham, but it did
not see significant use, the associated satellite runways have mostly
since been overbuilt through suburban growth.

Australia's
Indian Ocean Offshore Territories during the Second World War

Australia has
made little use of the strategic position of either Indian Ocean
offshore territory since it gained control of them a half century ago.
The Cocos (Keeling) Islands have been employed on a regular basis as a
Forward Operating
Base (FOB) for refuelling P-3 Orion Long Range Maritime Patrol (LRMP)
aircraft, especially during the late Cold War period when Soviet fleet
movements needed to be closely monitored.

During the Second World War both Indian Ocean offshore territories were
deemed important enough
for military use. Christmas Island was invaded and occupied by the
Japanese in March 1942, following several raids by Japanese submarines,
surface warships and naval aircraft. The British garrison collapsed
when the
Indian troops stationed on the island mutinied and then killed the five
British military personnel
on the island. A very small garrison of Japanese troops held the island
until
October, 1945, when the Royal Navy arrived and British forces secured
the island.

The Cocos (Keeling) Islands were intended to play a much larger role in
Commonwealth military operations conducted by South East Asia Command
(SEAC) during the Second World War. Operation Zipper was a planned
joint force invasion of South
East Asia by the Commonwealth XIVth Army, to retake Malaya
and
Singapore, occupied by the Japanese in 1941. The Cocos (Keeling)
Islands were identified as the most suitable location for a
Strategic Forward Operating Base (SFOB), from which the Royal Air Force
could perform sea control using LRMP aircraft, and launch strategic
bombing raids using heavy bombers. In 1944 logistical and construction
units of the XIVth Army landed on the islands and commenced
clearing of
West Island and the construction of the airfield. This effort was
designated Operation
Pharos [20].

Royal Air Force Supermarine Spitfire LF.VIII aircraft were shipped by
sea to the airfield, borken down in crates,
and reassembled at the airfield. The Royal Air Force 136 SQN,
previously distinguished in operations flown over Burma, was redeployed
from India in April, 1945, to operate the newly
delivered Spitfires. The Spitfires were to provide air defence and
escort capabilities. Royal Air Force 136 SQN was operationally ready in
June, 1945.

DeHavilland Mosquito PR.XXXIV long range photoreconnaissance aircraft
of
684 SQN, based in India, deployed to the Cocos (Keeling) Islands once
the Spitfire unit was ready. The Mosquito PR.XXXIV employed an
additional bomb bay fuel tank to provide sufficient operating radius to
perform pre-strike photoreconnaissance over Malaya, and bomb damage
assessment.

With the Cocos (Keeling) Islands established as a secure operational
base, SEAC redeployed two Royal
Air Force heavy bomber squadrons from India, 231 Group's 99 SQN and 356
SQN, in July, 1945. Both units were equipped with Liberator B.VI
(B-24H) bombers. The intended full deployment of 231 Bomber Group
did not eventuate due to the collapse of Japan, with the remaining
squadrons still located at bases in India.

Due to the persistent risk of German U-boats and Japanese submarines,
and the ongoing effort to interdict Japanese surface traffic in the
Indonesian archipelago, SEAC
deployed detachments from 160 SQN, 203 SQN and 321 (Netherlands) SQN,
in 222 Group, for LRMP tasks, from their bases in Ceylon (Sri Lanka).
The latter were equipped with Liberator
GR.VI (B-24G/H/J) and GR.VIII (B-24J) aircraft.

The Royal Air Force Liberators were highly active in the last weeks of
the war,
attacking Japanese shipping targets in Java, and bombing and strafing
the Japanese airfields at Benkeolen in Sumatra, also credited as the
last Royal Air Force strike sortie of the war. Less known is that the
Liberators performed covert supply drops
for special forces operating in Malaya.

A major strike on Singapore was
cancelled as Japan's surrender became known. Thereafter the Liberators
were used
to drop supplies to Allied POWs, and later used as makeshift transports
for evacuations of Allied POWs. A 203 SQN GR.VI was lost to Japanese
fighters on
the 14th August, 1945, near Rakata Island in the Sunda Strait [21].

With the collapse of Japan following the B-29 nuclear
attacks, the Cocos (Keeling) Islands SFOB never attained its intended
operational
tempo or intended role as the primary bomber base for the defunct
Operation Zipper.

The RAF airfield was redeveloped into the existing
West Island field.

Strategic
Considerations for Indian Ocean Basing Infrastructure

Historically,
Australia's fundamental strategy was constructed around the concept of
denying the use of the sea-gap to potential opponents in Asia,
reflecting the experience of the Second World War, where Japanese
access to basing in what is now Indonesia permitted Japanese aircraft
to attack targets across northern Australia. Until recently, Australia
had a robust capability to implement this strategy, using submarines,
but especially F/RF-111C aircraft armed with AGM-84 Harpoon
anti-shipping
missiles, and Paveway guided bombs.

The evolving strategic environment requires a fundamentally stronger
strategy, as at this time the Australian continent is within the reach
of a number of weapon systems which are not reliant upon basing in
Indonesia to achieve strategic effect.

“In strategic terms this means that Australia should centre
its future military strategy on “regional denial” with the aim of
denying operations in the sea-air gap, above and around the Australian
continent, and also denying the basing of combat forces and facilities
in the northern archipelago.

To implement such a strategy, Australia will need to
fundamentally rethink its approach to air power, naval power and land
force capabilities.

Current and future capabilities for the RAAF will need to be focussed
in two key areas. One is persistent air dominance and the related
capability to kill cruise missiles and their launch platforms. The
second is in providing long range strike capabilities with sufficient
weight of fire to render regional basing unusable in combat. Maritime
patrol and Anti-Submarine Warfare capabilities need a complementary
focus and will also require growth.

Current and future capabilities for the RAN will also need to be
focussed in two key areas. The first is in Anti-Submarine Warfare,
requiring surface combatants and submarines which are suitable for this
task and sufficiently numerous. The second capability is in providing
organic cruise missile defences for surface warships and escorted
shipping.

Current and future capabilities for the Army will need to include
Surface to Air Missile, and in the future Directed Energy Weapon,
defences against cruise missiles, ballistic missiles and other guided
weapons, to protect critical military and industrial infrastructure,
and population centres. The Army will also need to assume
responsibility for protecting such targets against Special Forces
attack. Another important future role for the Army is providing covert
insertion and extraction means for Infantry and Special Forces
operating across the region. Sufficient capabilities should be
available to deploy, sustain and extract useful numbers of Infantry and
Special Forces troops.”

Implementing this strategy requires both suitable force
structure investments, but also suitable basing infrastructure to
support the types of platforms and required sortie rates. Provision of
Anti-Submarine Warfare and long range strike capabilities are the most
challenging, the former due to range and persistence requirements, the
latter due to range and the need to penetrate modern air defences [23].

The heavy use of
Northern and North-Western Australian bases through the Second World
War, by the RAAF, USAAC and US Navy, reflects the advantageous
geographical placement of these sites relative to areas which are
geographically of strategic interest in South East Asia.

The geostrategic importance of these key areas of South East Asia has
increased since the 1940s, but the geography remains unchanged. If the
intent is to operate military platforms across these areas, the
optimally placed locations in terms of range and coverage are those
sites in the Pilbara, Kimberley and Northern Territory which were
employed for basing during the 1940s, or proximate locations. This is
depicted in Figure 23.

No differently, the British
1940s investment in the Cocos (Keeling) Islands is a reflection upon
the
excellent geographical location, for any operations intended to cover
the chokepoints of the Malacca and Sunda Straits, and the major sea
lanes skirting Southern India.

In this context, the great circle distances (Refer Figure 23)
range between 600 nautical miles and 1,500 nautical miles, which is
well within the capabilities of LRMP aircraft, tanker supported
tactical fighters, and naval surface and subsurface assets. Attempting
to cover the same geographical footprint from the Pilbara or Kimberley
mostly doubles the required distances, which doubles transit times,
doubles fuel burn, and mostly halves achievable sortie rates.

This is true for aircraft, but is an even greater challenge for naval
assets, be they surface fleet or submarines, as their transit speeds
are less than 10 percent the transit speeds of aircraft.

Fuel aside, replenishment of
expended munitions is a major issue, especially for the Navy. While the
Navy has the option of underway replenishment from logistical ships,
these must be escorted in and out of contested waters, and protected
from aerial, surface warship and submarine attack during replenishment.
This is not feasible if within the reach of
hostile land based strike aircraft, without unusually heavy commitment
of protective land based Combat Air Patrols and tankers.

Basing sites located in the Pilbara, Kimberley, but especially the
Cocos (Keeling) Islands represent valuable assets under such
conditions, as they can be used to replenish submarines and surface
warships with munitions and fuel, and if needed, crew. Moreover, these
bases significantly increase available time on station during LRMP
sorties.

Considering operations deeper into the region, the Cocos (Keeling)
Islands also
dramatically reduce the demand for tanker aircraft, where tactical
fighters need to be deployed. The old adage about “unsinkable aircraft
carriers” applies, with the added capability for high volume logistical
resupply.

If Australia intends to protect its outer Western maritime approaches,
and perform both maritime denial and sea control operations in the
Indian Ocean, then the Cocos (Keeling) Islands are ideally located.
Moreover, the
location offers the potential for air strikes into South East Asia,
Burma, and the South China Sea, with sufficient tanker support. While
the latter may appear “valueless” in the current peacetime regional
environment, any major shifts in the political and military alignment
of regional nations away from the US Alliance could change that
assumption literally overnight.

Therefore, the safest strategy for Australia is to properly develop the
military potential of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, as a naval
replenishment site,
and an air force “Strategic FOB” along the lines of the SEAC effort in
1944 – 1945.

It would demonstrate across the region that Australia has
the intent and means to
defend its sovereign territories and broader strategic interests in the
Indian Ocean.

Christmas Island could play a similar role, although it is located
within 260
nautical miles of Jakarta, and thus is highly exposed in any military
situation where Indonesia is occupied by another power, aligns itself
with another power, or actually becomes an
adversary
in its own right. Contemporary tactical ballistic missiles, ground
launched cruise missiles and even the smallest tactical fighters can
easily reach Christmas Island from any number of sites in Java.

The
reciprocal dimension of such proximity is that Christmas Island would
easily permit high tempo air operations into Indonesia's heartland, a
reality which will not be lost upon the TNI leadership in Jakarta. Any
significant development of the military potential of Christmas Island
would require some very adept diplomacy, and possibly the offer of
training facilities and weapons range access on the island for the
TNI-AU. If Indonesia becomes embroiled in a regional conflict to its
north, a major basing facility on Christmas Island for ADF and US Air
Force assets could be invaluable – the critical political dimension is
whether Indonesia wishes to remain aligned with the US and Australia in
the long term.

These considerations apply to Australian strategic needs in the context
of defending Australia's immediate interests in the region, during a
period of increased strategic competition across the region.

An additional dimension to consider is that of the strategic needs of
our
principal ally, the United States.

The United States had an excellent basing network across the Pacific
during the Cold
War, including multiple bases in Japan, South Korea, the Philippines,
the Marianas and Hawaii, with leased access to Britain's Diego Garcia
in the Indian Ocean.

Two decades after the Cold War the North Asian bases are demonstrably
indefensible
against Chinese air assets, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles.
The large Subic Bay and Clark bases in the Philippines were closed down
at the end of the Cold War [24].

While Diego Garcia and Guam have become central basing “hubs”, the
remaining bases are of limited utility due to their exposed locations.
A crisis in
South East Asia or the eastern Indian Ocean would present major
challenges, especially for tactical air and tanker aircraft basing.
This would be true of a conflict, as much as a major natural disaster.

In the context of supporting United States operations in Asia,
well developed air and naval basing infrastructure on the Cocos
(Keeling) Islands, Christmas Island, Pilbara and Kimberley would
become a
valuable capability
in its own right, which Australia could offer the use of in a major
contingency. These
sites would provide a genuine basing capability “gap filler” located
between the major bases in Guam
and Diego Garcia.

Military Operations Other Than War

While the primary
purpose of military
basing is to prevail in military conflicts, or deter such conflicts,
especially against nation state opponents, it is not the sole purpose
of such installations. Military Operations Other Than War (MOOTW) are
also of
considerable importance, especially where civil authorities in
Australia, or other nations are limited in their capacity or
capabilities to deal with
particular contingencies.

MOOTW potentially span a wide range of contingencies, encompassing
domestic and foreign contingencies, and ranging across
deterrence, stability operations, disaster relief and any other
contingency where military capabilities are employed for other than
combat operations. United States joint doctrine states: “MOOTW focus on
deterring war, resolving conflict, promoting peace, and supporting
civil authorities in response to domestic crises”.

Two particular categories of contingency are of importance and of
interest in the context of the Pilbara, Kimberley, Cocos
(Keeling) Islands and Christmas Island - natural disasters and the
broader category of supporting law enforcement and enforcing border
controls.

The first type of contingency, natural disasters, may arise either
within
Australian territory, or within the immediate region, and often require
high intensity logistical and personnel surge deployments to effect
relief and rescue efforts.

Within Australia, the most likely natural disasters observed in
the “deep north” are the result of cyclones, which can be accompanied
by severe
flooding, and serious infrastructure, and housing damage, arising due
to
extremely high wind speeds, intensive rainfall and severe sea surface
and coastal surge conditions. The best known example of this class of
contingency is Cyclone Tracy, which largely destroyed Darwin in
December, 1974,
and resulted in the greatest single airlift operation in Australian
history, when military and civilian aircraft were employed en masse
to
move much of the population of Darwin to temporary accommodation in
other Australian states [25].

While Tracy was unusual in the statistical sense that it
was both a large cyclone, and it hit the single largest population
centre in the north of the nation, it will, inevitably, not be the last
such event, whether in Australia, or in South Asia or South-East Asia.
The largest such disaster was in Bangladesh in 1970, when Cyclone Bhola
wrought havoc upon low lying coastal areas, resulting in high
initial loss of life, and subsequent further losses due to starvation
and disease, following flooding, famine and the propagation of
waterborne diseases. The subsequent 1991 Bangladesh cyclone was of
similar scale and lethality.

Strategically sensitive South-East Asia is especially of concern as a
location for large scale
natural disasters.

While cyclones are by far the best known of the likely contingencies,
monsoonal flooding without widescale wind and sea surge damage is also
a common occurence in this region, and possibly a more frequent
contingency in the future with the coincidental circumstances of
anthropogenic deforestation and increasing climatic instability.
Deforestion can degrade the capacity of the local environment to absorb
large short term rainfall, resulting in turn in catastrophic mudslides
and faster rainfall runoff, often in excess of the capacity of natural
and manmade drainage mechanisms.

Tectonic instability in South-East Asia produces by global standards an
unusually high frequency of earthquakes, with coincident tsunamis if
the epicentre is located on a seabed, as well as an propensity for
high volcanic activity levels.

Active volcanoes in the region have produced most media attention due
to
disruptions in air travel arising from ash clouds, and several
instances where widebody aircraft were at serious risk of loss
following ash induced damage to engines and windshields. The best
example of the latter was British Airways Flight 9 in 1982, which lost
power over Indonesia due to
ash ingestion.
Ash clouds are arguably the least severe of the possible outcomes
produced by
regional volcanic events.

The eruption of Krakatoa in the Sunda Strait, in 1883, produced not
only large
immediate loss of life due to severe local tremors, pyroclastic clouds,
lava flows, tsunamis and ash fall, but also more widespread damage due
to ash
destroying crops, and weather disruption globally. The large scale
eruption of Krakatoa in 535 AD has been
implicated in much greater damage, on a global scale, resulting in
large scale crop and pasture failures, in turn resulting in large scale
population displacements. More recently, the 1991 eruption of
Mount Pinatubo
in the Philippines resulted in intensive ash fall on Clarke AFB,
effectively disabling the base [26].

A major volcanic eruption in the near region has enormous potential for
damage effects, both locally, and given population density, elsewhere
in the region.

The tsunami of 2004 with its epicentre near Aceh in northern Sumatra
resulted in massive loss of life, mostly in Indonesia and Thailand. The
exemplary rescue, relief and aid operation, under Operation Unified
Assistance, in which United States and
Australian military forces played a pivotal role, presents
a historical case study of the value of military assets in disaster
relief. Refer Annex C.

MOOTW is not however confined to disaster relief, rescue operations and
evacuations, although these are the most visible, largest and often
most valuable contributions military capabilities can make.

Border control operations, especially piracy, smuggling of people,
contraband goods, arms and narcotics, and
illegal immigration have been persistent problems at any ocean
boundaries between developed nations and the developing world. All are
byproducts of weak or underdeveloped law enforcement and border control
mechanisms, and present expensive problems for the victim nations in
question.

Notable recent examples on the global stage include persistent problems
with seaborne illegal entries in Europe from Africa, persistent large
scale piracy on the high seas near the Horn of Africa, especially
involving lawless Somalia, and ongoing problems of piracy and
terrorism in South East Asia. The nexus between criminal organisations
and terrorist movements, where criminal activities are often used as a
funding mechanism for terrorism, is an issue in its own right.

Military assets have been used in border control operations where civil
authorities have lacked specific capabilities for the task, or where
the scale of the problem has exceeded civilian agencies' capabilities.

Enhancement of basing in the
Pilbara, Kimberley, Cocos
(Keeling) Islands and Christmas Island, especially where an airbase and
naval replenishment facility, with logistical infrastructure, can be
co-located, provides a high value capability for MOOTW, especially for
dealing with both domestic and near region natural disasters.

Key initial imperatives in natural disasters are damage assessment
using ISR systems, rapid delivery of aid supplies and rescue personnel
into the disaster area, and rescue and evacuation of disaster victims.
Basing of suitable capacity on the mainland can be employed as staging
and operational basing for disaster relief forces deployed into the
area, and are especially useful for logistical buffering of
incoming bulk aid supplies. The capacity to refuel from high volume
fuel storage permits high sortie rates for helicopters and airlifters
tasked with supply drops and rescue operations.

In northern Australia, well hardened military basing with integral
water, sewage and electrical generation systems and capacity for
accommodating thousands of military personnel, where located in close
proximity to population centres, would also present the option of using
these sites as sheltered locations for the civilian population during
extreme weather events such as cyclones, and as evacuation transit
sites following disasters.

In border control operations, military basing with robust capacity is
valuable for forward basing equipment and personnel, provision of high
capacity connections into the C3 network, but also for staging
evacuations of detainees.

In conclusion, over the long term, the certain need to conduct MOOTW
within the “deep north” and near region
present compelling
reasons why major enhancement of basing in the
Pilbara, Kimberley, Cocos
(Keeling) Islands and Christmas Island should be pursued. Unlike the
conduct of war, where certainty of future outcomes is often in dispute,
the need to conduct MOOTW is a well
established reality of that geographical area, and the
only uncertainties fall into exactly where and when MOOTW will need to
be conducted.

Strategic Basing
Design Requirements

The Second World War was fought in the South West Pacific Area (SWPA)
using mostly temporary airfields constructed using Perforated Steel
Planking (PSP) and tents for operational work areas and personnel
accommodation, or temporary anchorages. The Cold War, a four and one
half decade
long standoff, saw the introduction and long term use of often well
hardened, permanent basing. The Post Cold War conflicts which
culminated in the invasion of Iraq in 2003 were mostly fought from well
hardened permanent basing infrastructure, built to Cold War period
standards.

Cold War air and naval basing, constructed in Europe and Japan,
presents a good case study for the future regional environment, as it
was mostly built to be resilient, robust, durable and equipped for
sustained long duration operations.

Future major contingencies in the region could take three basic forms:

A short duration standoff or MOOTW, which could last for
weeks or
months;

A prolonged “Cold War-like” standoff which could last for
years or possibly decades;

High intensity conflict which could last for weeks or many
months;

High intensity conflict which could last for many months or
years, until one or both sides are exhausted.

Only the first type of conflict is “permissive” in basing demands and
compatible with lightweight “bare-bones” basing and temporary
structures, assuming
that Precision Guided Munitions are not employed.

Under all other circumstances, forces may need to be forward deployed
for months or years, and even if high intensity combat operations are
not conducted, basing may need to be used intensively and repeatedly
for shorter durations.

Given the increased strategic competition across the region, there will
be persistent potential for smaller regional disputes to escalate, upon
which larger regional players, i.e. the United States, China and India,
would inevitably become involved.

This has important implications for Australia's future basing
infrastructure across the northern arc of the continent, as well as
basing infrastructure which might be constructed on offshore
territories.

Three primary design considerations are prominent:

The ability to survive attacks using a range of Precision
Guided Munitions;

The ability to sustain prolonged high intensity operations
or months, or even years;

The ability to support all ADF platforms which might need
to use the base, or in an escalated contingency, United States
platforms;

These considerations apply regardless of whether the base is
continously occuppied, in the manner of RAAF Tindal, or transiently
occuppied, in the manner intended for RAAF Learmonth, Curtin and
Scherger [23].

An additional consideration in basing design is the local climatic
environment, which follows a seasonal monsoonal pattern, with a dry
season and a wet season. The latter is characterised by monsoonal
deluges, and often very intensive tropical cyclones. The latter can see
gusting wind speeds of up to 220 KT (Barrow Island 1996), intensive
rainfalls of hundreds of millimetres in days, sea waves of up to 20
metres (North Rankin A, 1989), and storm surges of up to 4 to 5 metres
[27].

A common practice in the mining industry across the Pilbara and
Kimberley is to evacuate most personnel before a cyclone arrives, after
most equipment is stowed or otherwise secured. This is not an option
for a military base during operations, as a major vulnerability will
exist until the base is reoccupied and operations resume.

Accommodating the seasonal monsoonal/cyclonic environment in the Indian
Ocean region results in an implicit need for base infrastructure
hardening, regardless of the risks inherent in a threat environment
dominated by Precision Guided Munitions.

Moreover, basing must be
designed with storm water drainage capable of accommodating extreme
rainfall intensities during cyclones, as well as fresh water and sewage
systems which cannot be disrupted under such conditions.

The need for persistence, i.e. the ability to sustain operations for
weeks or months, also has important implications. On-base fuel
and munitions storage must be sufficient to accommodate large short
term
surges in usage/expenditure, while replenishment may be weeks away.

Provision of fresh water for supporting hundreds or thousands of
personnel during deployments of months or possibly years of duration,
replenishing warships, and washing down aircraft will present issues at
most locations of interest. While artesian bore water is often used by
the mining industry, it is not an inexhaustable resource, and often
requires heavy treatment. On island locations, water lens effects
between salt and fresh subsurface water impose hard limits on available
bore water. Therefore, where basing is in close proximity to the coast
or located on an island,
the installation of a desalination plant with adequate capacity is the
only environmentally and operationally viable solution.

Sewage presents analogous problems, and environmental risks where there
is a possibility of flooding during the monsoonal/cyclonic season, and
resulting uncontrolled escape of effluent.

Solid waste from mess halls will need to be incinerated, given the
propensity of
native wildlife to feed on garbage dumps with resulting environmental
impacts resulting from atypical population growth rates. Waste
management and recycling is a necessary measure in all environmentally
sensitive sites [28].

While the seasonal monsoonal/cyclonic environment imposes many unique
needs in base construction, operations and maintenance, many of these
are not dissimilar to traditional hardening needs in basing built to
withstand or resist bombing attacks. A Hardened Aircraft Shelter,
submarine pen, or bunker capable of surviving a supersonic concrete
piercing
warhead will survive any conceivable cyclone. The design and
placement of shelters is discussed in Annex A.

Another important consideration in basing design is sizing for
platforms. In airfields, this is primarily an issue in terms of runway
surface strength and length, in naval wharfs, the draft available and
strength
of the wharf structure. These constraints determine the size of the
aircraft or warships which can use the facility.

The possibility that any regional contingency may escalate, to the
extent that United States assets might need to deploy into larger
Australian bases, dictates a need to size runways for the full spectrum
of United States aircraft types, and wharfs/piers for the drafts of all
United States warships and logistical vessels, the latter including
RORO ships and
prepositioning vessels.

An airfield capable of sustained high tempo operations by the
full spectrum of military aircraft at high gross weights dictates the
use of a US Air Force AFH-32-1084 “heavy load” compliant MOB
arrangement, an example of which is runway 6R/24L at Andersen AFB,
Guam, with dimensions of 11,204 x 200 ft. / 3,415
x 61 m, and a rigid concrete surface with a strength rating of PCN 99
/R/A/W/T
[29][30].

The same rationale leads to a requirement for major naval replenishment
facilities compliant with a MIL-HDBK-1025/UFC, with a pier
plumbed for POL, and capable of Roll-On Roll-Off transfers of vehicles
and materiel [31].

One advantage which accrues from this philosophy is that it yields
greater freedom to the ADF in the longer term, in acquiring platforms,
as basing infrastructure sizing is not a constraint.

Strategic
Constraints for Indian Ocean Basing

The relative importance of Australia's bases across the Pilbara,
Kimberley, Northern Territory and Indian Ocean Offshore Territories
depends in large part on what strategic priorities are assumed, in what
type of conflict.

During the Second World War, the priority in basing was initially in
the Northern Territory and Cape York, to provide support for operations
in New Guinea and the Solomons. As the Japanese forces in New Guinea
and the Solomons collapsed, the Pilbara and Kimberley gained
importance, as the focus of strike operations shifted to Java, Borneo
and Malaya.

The need to protect, across a wide range of scenarios, the Pilbara oil
and gas industry, raises the strategic value of basing infrastructure
in the Pilbara. The future development of the offshore Browse and
Bonaparte Basins in the Kimberley will see its priority increase in
time. These vulnerabilities exist in addition to the Timor Sea oil and
gas industry, which raises the priority of Kimberley and Northern
Territory basing.

If we assume that the principal purpose of basing across the North-West
is the defence of the oil, gas and mining industry infrastructure, then
equal priority needs to be accorded to all of these geographical areas,
in terms of basing air defence fighters, LRMP aircraft, and supporting
submarines on ASW patrols. This leads to the conclusion that the extant
RAAF Learmonth, Curtin and Tindal bases be upgraded to support
sustained operations by RAAF fighters, tankers and future P-8A Poseidon
LRMP aircraft or Remotely Piloted Vehicles (RPV/UAV).

Such an upgrade strategy is viable, given adequate AEW&C, Tanker
and escorting air cover is available, if the strategic posture is
reactive, in the sense that an attacker has freedom of choice in
choosing the time and place of an attack. Under conditions where the
JORN OTH-B system can provide early warning, a fighter CAP, Wedgetail
AEW&C and tanker would be launched to effect an intercept. A clever
opponent can reverse direction and fly home before the intercept can be
effected, resulting in a mission kill against the defending side. This
“bait and switch” tactic can be played ad nauseum, literally at
the expense of the ADF in aircrew hours, fuel burn and maintenance.

An important and very general consideration in the use of air power is
that transit time from a base to an area of combat operations is time
during which assets are unproductive, yet incurring full operating
costs. Operational economics always favours basing at the shortest
practical distance. Staying out of the reach of opposing air power and
ballistic missiles
favours the converse.

The “bait and switch” tactic becomes non-viable if RAAF fighters
are based on the Cocos (Keeling) Islands and Christmas Island, as the
attacker has to contend with the possibility of repeated engagements,
as intercepts may be initiated from the island air basing against both
inbound and outbound attackers.

What the Indian Ocean Offshore Territories offer is depth in
the defence of the sea-air gap. An opponent must first overwhelm the
bases on the Cocos (Keeling) Islands and Christmas Island before they
can even consider attacks against targets in the Pilbara and Kimberley.
In effect, military airfields emplaced on the Cocos (Keeling)
Islands and Christmas Island extend Australia's defensive depth in the
sea-air gap out to well beyond 1,000 nautical miles.

This model is predicated on the use of a wholly reactive
strategic posture, which may be politically inevitable in any dispute
which has yet to escalate into full scale combat operations.

There are also clear advantages in the use of airfields in the Cocos
(Keeling) Islands and Christmas Island if the strategic intent is
denial operations in South East Asia, involving air strikes on shipping
and land targets. While such targets are within reach of tanker
supported fighters operating from RAAF Learmonth, Curtin and Tindal,
sortie rates will be constrained by both distance and cruise speeds.

The advantages in the use of airfields in the Cocos (Keeling) Islands
and Christmas Island for basing LRMP aircraft are equally pronounced,
as time on station increases with decreasing distance to the patrol
area. Submarines performing ASW patrols in the Indian Ocean could
replenish fuel, expended munitions and swap personnel with minimum loss
of availability but using facilities in the Pilbara and the Cocos
(Keeling) Islands.

In air operations, high sortie ranges involving either long range
fighter sorties or long
duration fighter sorties, both of which require tanker support, are
very demanding in fuel burn, which presents the need for high volume
fuel replenishment, especially for tanker aircraft. Consumption for a
fighter squadron supported by tankers can run into hundreds of tonnes
daily at high operational tempo.

The strategy followed in some NATO nations, and some Persian Gulf
nations, was to lay POL pipelines between oil refineries located near
major ports, and major airbases. This permitted high volume sustained
aviation fuel supplies to these bases, enabling in turn intensive
operations using tankers [32].

The high volume production of natural gas in the Pilbara and Timor Sea,
and future production in the Kimberley, opens up the option of
aviation fuel production
within the region, using either condensate, or Fischer-Tropsch
technology gas-to-liquid (GTL) synthetic crude as feedstock. The main
prerequisite for a POL pipeline is that a
large LNG plant be located within a reasonable distance of an airfield
[33].

Within the immediate future, such plant will be located near Onslow and
Karratha in the Pilbara. As the Browse Basin is developed, the
Broome/Derby area is
likely to acquire an LNG plant.

An important benefit of a domestically produced synthetic aviation fuel
supply is that it can be sold in peacetime to support domestic civilian
and military air operational across Australia, and does not incur the
wartime risks associated with imported aviation fuel
supplies from refineries in Asia, which could be interdicted or
otherwise denied.

The alternatives for the ADF are thus replenishment by sea, using
tanker vessels, or the provision of synthetic aviation fuel plant and
pipelines to carry
aviation fuel to bases. While replenishment by sea presents the lowest
peacetime infrastructure investment, it also incurs the greatest
wartime risks and costs, as shipping is susceptible to air and
submarine attacks. Conversely, a synthetic aviation fuel plant in
reasonable or close
proximity to an airfield falls within the defensive footprint produced
by fighters and LRMP aircraft operating from that airfield.

The question which then arises is whether it is better to route long
pipelines to extant airfields, or construct new airfields in close
proximity to established LNG infrastructure?

RAAF Learmonth presents an interesting case study. A synthetic aviation
fuel plant
co-located with the Chevron facility being constructed at Onslow would
require a pipeline of 66 to 120 nautical miles of length, depending on
whether it is routed across the seabed or on land only.

The alternative
is the construction of an airfield within 25 nautical miles of
Karratha, and locating a synthetic aviation fuel plant on the Burrup
Peninsula. While RAAF
Learmonth is a dual use airfield, already carrying civilian traffic,
its 170 nautical mile distance from Karratha, which is the local
population centre, presents pragmatic difficulties in the use of RAAF
Learmonth as a “hub” for civilian air traffic into the Pilbara. If we
consider benefits other than in military operations, a new airfield
constructed close to Karratha would yield a much better return on
investment than routing fuel from a synthetic aviation fuel plant to
the extant RAAF
Learmonth site.

What is abundantly clear is that strategic considerations make a
exceptionally
strong case for the following basing enhancements:

Upgrades of the extant RAAF Learmonth, Curtin and Tindal
airfield runways and taxiways to permit unrestricted operation by all
military aircraft types in ADF and United States operational use;

Extensive airfield runway and taxiway hardening, water,
stormwater, sewage and waste management upgrades to the extant RAAF
Learmonth, Curtin and Tindal airfields to permit sustained long
duration operational use in combat, or other operations;

Hardened weapons storage magazines for the extant RAAF
Learmonth, Curtin and Tindal airfields, capable of holding
prepositioned munitions for several weeks of
combat ops, and capable of surviving hits by a range of
modern concrete piercing Precision Guided Munitions;

Hardened personnel accommodation for the extant RAAF
Learmonth, Curtin and Tindal airfields
capable of sustaining several hundred personnel each for several months
of combat ops, and capable of surviving hits by a range of
modern concrete piercing Precision Guided Munitions;

Hardened high delivery rate fuel replenishment and storage
infrastructure for the extant RAAF Learmonth, Curtin and Tindal
airfields, and capable of surviving hits by a range of
modern concrete piercing Precision Guided Munitions;

A “dual-use” large throughput synthetic aviation fuel plant
in
the Pilbara, located near the Burrup Peninsula or near Onslow, to
manufacture in-situ aviation fuel;

A submarine fuel and munitions replenishment facility in
the Pilbara region;

A submarine fuel and munitions replenishment facility in
the
Cocos (Keeling) Islands;

A hardened airfield of similar configuration to the
upgraded RAAF Learmonth, Curtin and Tindal airfields, located on the
Cocos (Keeling) Islands;

A hardened airfield of similar configuration to the
upgraded RAAF Learmonth, Curtin and Tindal airfields, located on
Christmas Island;

There is also a strong case for constructing a “dual-use” airfield, of
similar configuration to the
upgraded RAAF Learmonth, Curtin and Tindal airfields, in close
proximity to Karratha, for wartime use as a tanker Main Operating Base
and logistical “hub”, and to provide peacetime access for large
or long range commercial aircraft into the Pilbara region. Given the
high utility of such an airfield to commercial interests in Western
Australia, funding should be contributed by the State Government.

Basing
Development of the Pilbara and Kimberley Regions

The Pilbara and Kimberley are on
the verge of another major surge in economic growth, with ongoing oil
and gas industry growth, and robust performance in other resource
industry sectors.

Increased construction activity required to implement infrastructure to
support the energy and mining sectors will inevitably present synergies
which should be exploited where possible to reduce the cost and
accelerate the timelines of basing facility improvements.

A case study of a lost opportunity was the construction of the
Darwin to Alice Springs railroad extension. No effort was made to
exploit the presence of construction personnel and equipment, and lay
down a railway spur to RAAF Tindal to provide low cost replenishment of
fuel and movement of materiel into the base.

No less importantly, the extant civilian airfield infrastructure in the
Pilbara and Kimberley is mostly an artefact of the 1940s, with a number
of airfields constructed around the remnants of wartime installations.

Both the Pilbara and Kimberley have considerable potential as
eco-tourism destinations, but growth in this sector is critically
predicated on the availability of airfield infrastructure capable of
handling heavy commercial transports, especially the Boeing 747 series
and new Airbus A380, which are the backbone of low cost high volume
tourist air transport.

The only substantial airfield between Darwin and Perth is RAAF
Learmonth, which is impractical for high volume tourism due to its
location, but also limitations in fuel replenishment capability,
essential for long range airliner operations. From a strictly
commercial perspective, a major civilian or “dual-use” airfield located
in the Pilbara or Kimberley is essential if the potential long term
tourism revenues are to be realised.

Other synergies exist and should be exploited.

The former RAAF Truscott base remains operational as Mungalalu
Truscott Airbase, primarily to support offshore gas platforms and local
community needs. A runway upgrade compatible with higher gross weight
commercial Boeing 737-800 series transports would enable the use of
this location as a diversion site for RAAF P-8A Poseidon, Wedgetail
AEW&C aircraft, as well as RAAF fighters. An upgrade compatible
with commercial Airbus A330-200 would enable the use of
this location as a diversion site for RAAF KC-30 tankers, and U.S. Air
Force KC-135R and KC-46A tankers. The Anjo Peninsula also has potential
as an eco-tourism location, which will not materialise until commercial
air traffic can easily access the area.

There is no major commercial airfield in close proximity to Broome and
Derby, which could be used during future infrastructure development to
exploit Browse Basin gasfields. Robust development and upgrading of
RAAF Curtin would present the opportunity to make it the “dual-use hub”
airfield, permitting heavy airlifter access into the area, and thus
cost recovery over time.

RAAF Learmonth is within 3 nautical miles of the Cape Range, which runs
along the North West Cape, and provides terrain elevations in excess of
200 metres AMSL. This may present opportunities for the construction of
superhardened underground hangars, by tunnelling horizontally into
hillsides. Tunneling hangars into hillsides is a very effective airbase
hardening technique, used extensively by Switzerland, China and the
former Yugoslavia. Spoil
produced by tunnelling could be exploited during base upgrades.

Another synergy which should be exploited is the deployment of the
National Broadband Network (NBN) across the Pilbara and Kimberley in
coming years. This would present opportunities for secure high
bandwidth links into basing infrastructure.

Basing
Development of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands

The Cocos
(Keeling) Islands are a coral “horseshoe atoll” very similar in most
key respects
to Diego Garcia in the British Indian Ocean Territories, but much
smaller in available footprint, with a very
shallow lagoon. Therefore, the islands could be developed in a similar
fashion to Diego Garcia, using identical or similar construction
techniques, albeit on a much smaller scale.

The Diego Garcia base is a
logistical Main Operating Base (MOB) hosting prepositioning ships, POL
(Petroleum Oil Lubricant) storage, and an airfield which has been used
for heavy bomber strike operations since 1991, but especially during
the initial air campaign against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in 2001.

The principal limitations of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands when compared
to Diego
Garcia are threefold:

The first two are that land area of the Cocos (Keeling)
Islands is only
one half that of Diego Garcia, imposing practical limits on the scale
of any
installation, while the central lagoon is unusable due to its shallow
depth.

The third
limitation is that the Cocos (Keeling) Islands are within 600 nautical
miles of
Sumatra and Java, and thus within easy reach of large tactical
fighters, or air/sea launched cruise missiles, necessitating
significant base hardening and concrete shelters if a base is to
be
viable for use in wartime.

An unhardened base on the Cocos (Keeling) Islands would be a liability
more
than an asset in a modern war, given the global proliferation of smart
munitions. Resupply under air attack could also present problems –
daily aviation fuel burn alone for a larger deployment would be of the
order of hundreds of tonnes or greater.

Diego Garcia presents a good case study for any future development of
the Cocos (Keeling) Islands for ADF and potential United States basing
in a
contingency, with the caveat that the Cocos (Keeling) Islands is not
suitable as
a logistical MOB, and would be only used as a Strategic Forward
Operating Base.

While the existing Cocos (Keeling) Islands runway is adequate for the
P-3C Orion,
it is borderline for fighter operations due to length limitations, and
lacks the surface strength for sustained high tempo operations by heavy
aircraft, be they civilian transports, heavy military airlifters, or
tankers.

Survivability in combat dictates dual runways, even if one is only used
as a taxiway operationally. The latter, given the need for ~700 ft
separation between parallel runways, makes redevelopment of the
existing airfield infeasible unless the southern part of West Island is
enlarged by landfill into the main lagoon, North Lagoon and South
Lagoon.

The northern part of West Island, currently a defunct palm plantation,
would be viable for dual runway construction, and requires only partial
landfill in the Northern
Lagoon to provide full runway lengths, refer Figure 27.

This would permit
use of the legacy airfield as a redundant fighter runway, or storage
area.

There is sufficient area available for up to 44 Hardened Aircraft
Shelters for fighters. Hardened storage for aviation fuel and munition
warstocks, and hardened personnel accommodation, would be required, as
the Diego Garcia model of moored prepositioning and other logistical
ships presents a major vulnerability in wartime. Hardening is essential
from both an operational perspective, and to survive seasonal cyclones
in situ.

Figure 27. Concept diagram for Cocos (Keeling)
Islands redevelopment. This and similar basing arrangements are viable
for high tempo combat operations, while providing peacetime eco-tourism
potential. Environmental impact is minimised by siting the airfield on
the unused coconut plantation, and placing the wharf outside the
central lagoon (C. Kopp).

A naval replenishment facility with a MIL-HDBK-1025/UFC compliant pier
plumbed for POL, and capable of Roll-On Roll-Off transfers of vehicles
and materiel, modelled on Diego Garcia although much smaller, is also
feasible at Port Refuge, located at the northern tip of Direction
Island, where the seamount falls off rapidly, affording deep anchorage
and covert submarine access. Covered “submarine sheds” would be
preferable to permit covert replenishment.

A “ring road” causeway on
short pylons would be required to permit road access from the Direction
Island wharf to West Island, providing also hardened protection for
electrical and optical fibre cables, and POL and water pipelines to a
desalination plant.

Given that the primary purpose of a naval base on the Cocos (Keeling)
Islands
would be replenishment of warships and submarines, rather than high
volume logistical prepositioning of materiel, demands would be much
less challenging than at Diego Garcia. Any limited coral dredging near
Port Refuge would need to be performed very carefully given the
potential for wider environmental damage to the fragile coral ecosystem
in the lagoon, if performed poorly.

The latter is not only intrinsically important, given the value of the
islands' fragile habitat, but also given the peacetime potential of the
islands as a eco-tourism destination. A port capable of berthing cruise
ships, and an airfield compatible with long range airliners, provide a
critical enabler for eco-tourism, offsetting some infrastructure costs
over the longer term. Environmental considerations are discussed below.

Basing
Development of Christmas Island

Christmas
Island, given its geological similarity to Guam, presents few problems
in development as a major airbase location.

The abundance of dense and
tough volcanic rock on the island permits the construction of a well
hardened or superhardened airbase facility with no difficulty.

The
existing Christmas Island airfield site could be readily expanded in
the south or
south-west direction into a parallel 11,000 ft x 200 ft runway
arrangement. The result would be similar to Andersen AFB on Guam, with
a runway terminating over a cliff with 900 ft AMSL elevation.

A naval replenishment facility presents significantly greater
challenges, as the
island has no large natural harbour. The existing Flying Fish Cove
facilities built for phospate loading could be expanded and
redeveloped, but the site cannot become another Apra Harbor, and severe
problems arise seasonally with high sea states.

An alternate container
loading facility exists at Norris Point on the eastern tip of the
island, but it is also not a protected harbour.

Without major
development, such as the construction of an artificial seawall,
Christmas Island would be viable only for some naval resupply
and replenishment activities, under favourable weather conditions, but
would not be viable as a naval FOB.

Christmas Island was the intended location
for the construction of a major spaceport, with a launch facility at
the island's South Point, to be operated by Asia Pacific Space Centre
(ASPC) Pty Ltd. It was intended that a major airfield upgrade be
performed to support the spaceport.

The proposal did not eventuate, it appears due to
undercapitalisation. The location is suitable for launches into both
equatorial and polar orbits.

The development of a major airfield compatible with 747-400 and A380
airliners would be a critical enabler for the local tourist industry,
offsetting infrastructure costs over the longer term.

A detailed study covering a runway upgrade to 8,700 ft (2.65 km)
length, with an
improved surface to accommodate heavy Boeing 747 and Antonov 124-100
aircraft, was performed by the Department of Transport and Regional
Services in 2001, the intent being to provide the capability to support
the proposed spaceport.

The DOTAR submission to the Public Works Committee in 2001 stated [34]:

“None of the environmental investigations carried out for the
preparation of the EIS revealed any significant environmental
impediments to the construction of the airport upgrade. Overall, the
environmental impacts are considered to be minor.”

As a hardened military airfield with a “dual-use” role would inevitably
have a larger footprint than the proposed upgrade assessed in 2001,
careful consideration will be required to accommodate local
environmental constraints, given the fragility of the local ecosystem.

Environmental
Considerations

The Cocos
(Keeling) Islands and Christmas Island are acknowledged to be
environmentally sensitive, and are widely regarded to be national
assets. Both are home to national parks, the Pulu Keeling
National Park and the Christmas Island National Park. Both
locations
host a number of endangered wildlife species, but also a large number
of common species found across the atolls and islands of the
Indo-Pacific.

Indeed, the Cocos (Keeling) Islands are a very typical tropical Indian
Ocean atoll, very similar to those found in the Chagos Archipelago of
the British Indian Ocean Territories, the Maldives, or some parts of
the Seychelles.

Conversely, Christmas Island is a volcanic seamount, with a tropical
rainforest
habitat, and due to geographical isolation, a large number of endemic
species. The uniqueness of the wildlife has led to this island being
sometimes labelled as the “Galapagos of the Indian Ocean”.

The original ecosystems of both the Cocos (Keeling) Islands and
Christmas
Island have suffered severe damage resulting from human habitation. In
the
Cocos (Keeling) Islands, the native vegetation was mostly replaced with
coconut plantations, with only North Keeling Island retaining the
original Pisonia forests which covered both atolls. On Christmas
Island, open cut phosphate mining led to the destruction of swaths of
native rainforest.

Much greater damage has been produced by invasive introduced species,
especially the Yellow Crazy Ant Anoplolepis gracilipes, which
is a problem species across the north of Australia, and common pests
such as domestic rats, and feral domestic animals. Super colonies of
the Yellow Crazy Ant, and the mainland Giant Centipede, Ethmostigmus
rubripes, have produced serious environmental damage on Christmas
Island, and are implicated in the likely extinction of one endemic
species, and serious population losses in others.

Any military facilities to be constructed on either of these sites will
require very careful environmental management and planning to ensure
that no further damage is produced to the local habitats and especially
any endemic species. Moreover, logistical areas of airfields and naval
berths must be robustly quarantined from the local habitat to ensure
that invasive species which may be “hitch-hiking” on
airlifted pallets, containers or vehicles cannot easily gain access to
the rest of the local habitat.

One advantage of military facilities is that access is inherently
controlled, and thus unwanted human access can be largely denied. As a
result, hunting, fishing or simple vandalism can be prevented, and
feral animal species excluded or eradicated, the latter practice
implemented on Diego Garcia. Moreover, controlled
access presents opportunities for habitat repair, by replacing
introduced vegetation with species previously destroyed. The latter is
frequently not appreciated by many radical environmentalists, who have
failed
to see military installations for the opportunities they present in
environmental repair and control.

A military facility will require sewage installations, and a water
desalination plant, with capacity to support up to several thousand
personnel in a contingency. If implemented correctly, such
installations would reduce existing stresses on groundwater supplies,
and extant sewage systems.

Large long term installations involving large numbers of personnel and
heavy construction activities over a long period of time can be managed
without significant environmental damage. The best case study of
regional relevance is the oilfield on Barrow Island, a gazetted A Class
Nature Reserve since the early twentieth century. Chevron, formerly WA
Petroleum, have operated a substantial oilfield on Barrow Island since
the 1970s, and more recently, have commenced the construction of a
major LNG plant.

With a vested interest in retaining access, the company imposed
stringent protocols for personnel working on the island. It is not well
known that since the late 1970s, all refuse on the island was
incinerated to deny its use as a food source for scavenging or
predatory species, to ensure that the population balance between
species was not perturbed. The company retained high profile advisors
to ensure that the environment was carefully monitored, and any
unwanted problems rectified [35].

Cocos (Keeling)
Islands Environmental Considerations

The principal challenge in the installation and long term operation of
a major military airfield on West Island and a naval replenishment site
on Dimension Island is ensuring that the fragile habitat of the central
lagoon is not damaged.

This lagoon is home to numerous coral species, a wide range of fish and
sea snakes, but importantly is a safe haven for numerous species of sea
turtle, especially the endangered Hawksbill sea turtle, Eretmochelys
imbricata, and Green sea turtle, Chelonia
mydas. Several hundred Hawksbill turtles, and thousands of Green
turtles, are estimated to live in this lagoon [36].

A major consideration in the environmental management plan for the
construction of the Rumah Baru jetty was ensuring that turtles were not
injured by lagoon seabed dredging [37].

Dredging presents other risks, specifically as a result of silt carried
by currents into areas not being dredged, and causing the death of
coral species through suffocation. There are a range of established
techniques for dredging to prevent such collateral damage from arising
[38].

The concept for a naval wharf at Direction Island obviates this problem
as it is emplaced outside the lagoon proper, with its supporting pylons
located on the seabed outside Port Refuge. Subject to exact wharf
placement, there may be no requirement for any dredging other than to
emplace supporting pylons.

Internal transport of heavy or bulk materiel between Direction Island
and West Island could be implemented in two ways. One is transport
across the lagoon using either a barge or an LCAC (Landing Craft, Air
Cushion), the other is by constructing a “ring road” around the atoll.

Both of these options were assessed and rejected during the initial
studies which led to the eventual Rumah Baru jetty project, on the
basis of cost and some unspecified environmental concerns [39].

A ring road
implemented as an elevated causeway connecting the islands of the atoll
would not produce large long term environmental impact, as seawater
flow between the islets of the atoll would not be impaired by the
concrete pylons supporting the prefabricated concrete spans. While this
is a costlier option than procuring and operating barges or LCACs, it
also does not disturb the lagoon ecosystem, and presents no boatstrike
risks to turtles or other marine life [40].

Similar considerations apply to the transfer of bulk aviation kerosene
from a Direction Island terminal to storage tanks on West Island. A six
or eight inch pipeline could be laid across the lagoon at low cost, but
the long term risk is that saltwater corrosion would result in fuel
leaks into the lagoon over time. Embedding the POL pipeline in a “ring
road” minimises pipeline exposure, and permits frequent access for
inspection and repairs if required. Moreover, the concrete provides
significant tolerance to bomb damage in wartime, and simplifies repairs
and recovery.

The construction of a hardened airfield installation on the northern
portion of West Island will not yield significant impacts if properly
managed. The vegetation is primarily a coconut plantation. What a
hardened airfield does present an opportunity to do in appropriate
areas, is the
revegetation and thus replacement of the extant introduced plant
species with the original species, such as Pisonia grandis, which
are still present on North Keeling Island.

At the time of writing a
small scale revegetation effort was under way, by Parks Australia [41].

Christmas
Island Environmental Considerations

Christmas Island has suffered serious environmental damage over time,
as a result of phosphate mining, but especially the impact of invasive
species producing “ecological cascade failures” across multiple parts
of the ecosystem [42].

Beeton et al paint a bleak picture of the ecological situation on
Christmas Island: “The Island has extraordinary terrestrial,
subterranean and marine conservation values that are being diminished
by management deficiencies and threats that are pervasive, chronic and
increasing. Unfortunately, these problems will not have simple
solutions. ... The EWG's recommendations set out the long-term and
substantial changes that will be required for the successful future
management of Christmas Island and its surrounding seas as a single
ecological entity. We warn that a 'business as usual' approach in
future will mean that management will fail and the extraordinary
national asset that is Christmas Island's biodiversity will be replaced
by a combination of many introduced and a few resilient native species.
That outcome would be a failure in biodiversity conservation and would
compromise the potentially secure economic future for the island as a
tourist venue”[43].

The expansion of the airfield site on Christmas Island to accommodate a
hardened military dual runway installation with HAS and hardened fuel
and munitions storage would involve incremental expansion of the
existing airfield site. The area proximate to the existing airfield is
currently being revegetated to repair previous damage from mining
operations [44].

As the installation would be performed in an area where previous
environmental damage was done, the opportunity presents to perform more
extensive remediation work within the perimeter of the expanded
airfield site, as part of the construction effort, and to maintain a
tightly controlled environment once the site is operational.

Moreover, the installation of a desalination plant to support the
airfield presents an opportunity to reduce stress on the extant island
groundwater supply [42].

The
Australian
Defence Force Posture Review Interim Report

The Interim Report covering
the Australian
Defence Force Posture Review was released in late January, 2012.

The report is in many key respects an
important advance, as it
correctly identifies a wide range of necessary improvements to ADF
basing in Western Australia, until recently not acknowledged as either
necessary or relevant by the Department of Defence.

The most important of the Preliminary Conclusions are cited
thus:

AUSTRALIAN DEFENCE FORCE POSTURE
REVIEW:
INITIAL ASSESSMENTS

Attachment C

Preliminary Conclusions
/ Notes

(4) RAAF Learmonth is a key base for operations in the North West and
there is a case for its capacity to be enhanced to enable protracted,
unrestricted operations by KC-30 and P-8 aircraft, as well as the F-35.

(5) While permanent Navy bases in the North West are not operationally
necessary, there is a case for Defence to pursue improved access
arrangements at commercial ports such as Exmouth, Dampier, Port Hedland
and Broome.

(6) Defence (Joint Logistics Command) to carry out an assessment of
civil infrastructure and its logistics capacity available to support
operations in the North West in a range of contingencies.

(11) Defence to pursue the upgrade the Cocos (Keeling) Islands airfield
(...
there is a case for Defence to consider upgrading the Cocos Islands
airfield to support P-8 operations...).

(16) Defence to develop options to expand wharf capacity and support
facilities at Fleet Base West to:

a. support major surface combatant capability
and operations by:

I. providing adequate infrastructure and
facilities, including missile loading and maintenance facilities, to
homeport at least one Air Warfare Destroyer as well as the Future
Frigate class; and
II. providing facilities that are also able to be used for deployments
and operations in Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean by US Navy major
surface combatants and aircraft carriers;

b. support submarine capability and operations
by:

I. enabling Fleet Base West to continue as
the primary submarine homeport when the expanded Future Submarine fleet
enters service; and
II.providing facilities that are also able to be used by US Navy
nuclear-powered submarines.

(23) Defence to upgrade Tindal, Townsville and the bare bases at
Learmonth and Curtin, with Scherger as a lesser priority, to support
future F-35 operations.

(25) Defence to consider upgrades to the bare base at Curtin for KC-30
and P-8 operations, to provide a more resilient posture for major
combat operations in our Northern and North West approaches.

(26) Defence to rigorously assess fuel and EO requirements for forward
air bases during high tempo air operations and identify potential
risks, deficiencies and mitigation measures.

(27) Defence to consider options for ‘hardening’ and resilience
improvement at forward main bases and bare bases, commensurate with the
risks associated with increasing capabilities in the Asia-Pacific
region, including:

(37) Defence to conduct risk assessments on the strategic logistics
capacity of ADF bases and facilities to sustain high tempo operations
in Australia and its approaches, and develop options to mitigate risks.
This body of work might incorporate previously mentioned options for:

a. enhancing fleet logistics capacity,
particularly missile loading and
maintenance at Fleet Base West as per Tentative Finding 16; and
b. risk mitigation for air bases as per Tentative Finding 26.

(38) Defence to consider establishing a secondary EO loading facility
at Port Alma and a new Defence EO precinct at Bajool near Rockhampton,
to support amphibious operations, and possibly other maritime
operations (complementing redevelopment of the EO importation and LHD
loading facility at Point Wilson, Victoria).

(39) The Force Structure Review to consider the merits of expanding Air
Force’s air-to-air refuelling capabilities with additional KC-30
aircraft to better support high tempo air operations.

The principal area of concern is the manner
in which capability upgrades to airfields have been defined, in terms
of specific RAAF aircraft types, such as the KC-30 tanker and P-8A LRMP
aircraft, neither of which present especially challenging runway
strength and length requirements. If runway and taxiway upgrades are
constrained in implementation to these aircraft types, these bases
would remain inaccessible to larger and heavier aircraft, such as heavy
civilian transports or a number of heavier US Air Force aircraft types.
The latter in turn diminishes the strategic value of each and every
base subjected to such a constrained upgrade. The incremental cost of
making the upgrade compatible with larger and heavier aircraft is not
prohibitive, compared to the overall cost of any substantial runway
upgrade in a remote area, and also is as stated previously, an enabler
for high volume commercial traffic.

Of similar concern is that the definition of airbase ‘hardening’ and
resilience
improvement (27) does specify explicitly the use of Hardened Aircraft
Shelters and hardened bunkers for facilities, leaving the outcome open
to interpretation.

The proposed upgrade of RAAF Pearce is appropriate (24), but with an
unrestricted runway. Pearce should also be upgraded to permit the
permanent
basing of a fighter squadron in Western Australia, to minimise transit
times to
the Pilbara and Kimberley, and also to provide an in situ capability
to
defend HMAS Stirling without the cost and time overheads of
deployment from New South Wales or Queensland. In effect, RAAF Pearce
would play the same role as RAAF Cunderdin did during the 1940s, as the
principal basing hub for operations in Western Australia.

Basing upgrades to the Cocos (Keeling) Islands (11) are limited to
airfield
improvements, while no upgrades to Christmas Island facilities are
proposed.

Conclusions

The central conclusion this study draws is
that a deep and comprehensive upgrade of the basing infrastructure in
the Pilbara and Kimberley is essential to permit Australia to maintain
its strategic position in the region, safeguard the economically
important energy and resource industries of the North-West, and that
further important strategic advantages can be gained by the
construction of modern hardened basing infrastructure in the Cocos
(Keeling) Islands and Christmas Island.

Moreover, there are other important strategic and political payoffs in
such basing upgrades, in both Military Operations Other Than War, in
supporting Australia's principal ally, the United States, and in
facilitating the growth of the tourist industry by providing dual use
capabilities in key basing locations.

Basing upgrades will require that the fragile environment in this
geographical region is respected and carefully addressed in base
upgrade or new construction planning.

Notes
and Acknowledgements

This study is not the first proposal to
establish a permanent military basing infrastructure on the Cocos
(Keeling) Islands, or Christmas Island.

The 1956 strategic policy paper entitled “THE STRATEGIC BASIS OF
AUSTRALIAN DEFENCE POLICY” endorsed on 11th October, 1956, by the
then Defence Committee, stated: “Cocos Island should be held as an
important forward base...Preparations for the defence of the north-west
approaches to Australia will depend on the probable form and scale of
attack at any given time....in the event of a Communist-controlled
Indonesia actively threatening these approaches, military operations
may be necessary against that country to provide depth to the defence
of the north west approaches to Australia, and to prevent the
development of a substantial air threat to Australia...In the event of
Indonesia becoming Communist, an air threat could develop more quickly
than an invasion threat.” While the threat assessment of that
period reflected the advance of Communism through South-East Asia, the
rationale for deployments and operations reflects immutable
geographical realities.

More recently, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute has
repeatedly published on the theme of Indian Ocean strategy, and an
exceptionally good monograph was produced in March, 2010, by Anthony
Bergin and Sam Bateman, entitled “Our western front: Australia and
the Indian Ocean”.

This author has also produced a series of shorter publications for Defence
Today journal covering Indian Ocean themes in 2011 and 2012, based
on the
same research materials as this study, and the author gratefully
acknowledges the support of the publisher, John Armstrong, in
exploring and publicising this important topic.

A great many individuals contributed insights, expert opinion and ideas
to this study. The author thanks Peter Goon, APA co-founder, members of
the APA editorial board, WGCDR Chris Mills (Retd), and of course, the
peer
reviewers who invested considerable time on the draft of this document.
Any omissions or faults are the responsibility of the author.

Western Australian resources industry delivers a
record $101 billion in sales in 2010–11, Department of Mines and
Petroleum, Government of Western Australia, URI: http://www.dmp.wa.gov.au/1525.aspx,
accessed February, 2012;

The extant RAAF Learmonth, Curtin
and Scherger “bare bones” and RAAF Tindal permanent bases are not
constructed with significant hardening, or the runways, fuel
replenishment and munitions storage infrastructure for high tempo
sustained operations. Moreover, the runways are not constructed for
sustained use by large aircraft at high gross weights. Refer En Route
Supplement Australia (ERSA), AIP Australia, Airservices Australia, URI:
http://www.airservicesaustralia.com/aip/...1;

Common use infrastructure on Christmas Island,
Report, Joint Standing Committee on Public Works, The Parliament of the
Commonwealth of Australia, 27 August 2002, URI: http://www.aph.gov.au/.../christmasindex.htm,
accessed February, 2012;

Barrow Island Nature Reserve, Webpage, Western
Australia Department of Environment and Conservation, URI: http://www.dec.wa.gov.au/content/view/6382/1618/,
accessed January, 2012; The author was employed by WAPET between 1979
and 1984, and was actively involved at that time in various projects
and tasks intended to protect the island environment, including the
construction of incinerators, cleanup of small scale oil spills, and
installation of protective guards on pumps;

Annex
A Airbase Hardening Considerations

Australia has no history in the design or
operation of modern hardened
airbases. The extant RAAF bases at Learmonth, Curtin, Darwin, Tindal
and Scherger employ characteristic dispersal areas, in which aircraft
are protected by conventional revetments, with lightweight roofing to
reduce the exposure of the aircraft to tropical sunlight and weather
[45].

This arrangement would be reasonably effective against a low level
strafing attack using guns, or a low level rocket or dive bombing
attack, using unguided weapons. It is ineffective against Precision
Guided Munitions, especially if supported by contemporary ISR systems.
As popular as dispersal might be in much contemporary military
thinking, it is no longer a viable strategy given the global
proliferation of modern ISR.

Figures A.1, A.2 Submarine
launched Tomahawk cruise missiles (depicted) proved very useful during
the Odyssey Dawn pre-emptive attack on Libya's air defence system in
March, 2011. The capability is no longer unique to the United States
and its allies, as the similar Russian Novator 3M14E Club cruise
missile has been widely exported to operators of the Kilo-class diesel
electric submarine (US Navy).

Figure A.3, A.4 Given the
proliferation of cruise missiles with precision
guidance, revetments are no longer an effective means of protecting
parked aircraft (US Navy).

Given capabilities extant across South East
Asia and the Far East, the
expectation that in any conflict a regional nation would choose to
employ unguided weapons in attacks against ADF basing, rather than
readily available warstocks of Precision Guided Munitions, is
unrealistic in the extreme.

Historically,
attacks on airbases have had two distinct aims. One has been the
destruction of aircraft on the ground, and the other critical base
infrastructure, such as runways, taxiways, fuel storage, munitions
storage, electricity generation, navigational aids and other supporting
systems and equipment. Future hardening of ADF basing must reflect
this reality, and respective capabilities deployed across Asia.

Weapons which could be deployed against ADF basing vary in effects. The
most effective weapons are typically the most difficult to deploy, such
as the Russian 1,500 kg KAB-1500 series of guided bombs, which must be
deployed by a large fighter in the Flanker series, which in turn must
penetrate
defences and overfly the target to effect a delivery. Conversely, the
weapons which are least effective against well hardened facilities are
the least difficult to deploy, specifically various land attack and
air launched dual role standoff missiles and cruise missiles, and
ballistic missiles.

The best study to date on the risks of unhardened basing in the Pacific
Rim was produced by Stillion [24].

Stillion's study focussed primarily on the effects of PLA ballistic
missile attacks on United States and allied basing in the West Pacific
region, such as Kadena, Yokota and Guam. His findings are however
equally applicable to all guided muntion categories, and ADF basing
infrastructure.

While runways and taxiways can be repaired rapidly, and advances in
rapid repair technology in recent years permit this to be done faster
than in any previous conflict, hardening other infrastructure is much
more
challenging, and protecting aircraft even moreso.

Figure A.5, A.6 A modern Hardened
Aircraft Shelter at
Balad AB in Iraq (US Air Force).

Protecting aircraft from guided munitions is the most challenging task.
Hardened Aircraft
Shelters are not a panacea, but significantly increase the difficulty
to an opponent in attacking aircraft on the ground.

While layered active defence measures for airfields,
comprising interceptor aircraft, long, medium and short range Surface
to Air Missiles, short range guns, and in the future, directed energy
weapons, are important means of preventing attacks on airfields, they
do not obviate the need for passive defensive measures such as
hardening, regardless of whether such airbases are occupied on a
permanent or transient basis.

This is because no active defence system is impermeable to attacks, and
any active defence system can be eventually overwhelmed by weight of
fire, be it in saturation attacks or sustained attacks intended to
drain warstocks of munitions. The collapse of the United States
monopoly on stealth technology exacerbates these problems, as many such
threat systems will be extremely difficult to defeat by conventional
active defences. Airbases present attractive targets as they present
the highest concentration in time and space of aircraft, the
destruction of which will always be one of the highest priorities for
an attacker.

The relatively high cost of many passive defence measures must be
weighed carefully against the cost of active defences, which are
typically even higher, and increase considerably with increasing
coverage footprint, capability, redundancy and robustness. This is
especially important for smaller nations like Australia, which are
limited in personnel numbers and resources available to fund large
standing in situ air defence forces. An important case study is the
extensive use of passive defences by smaller nations during the Cold
War era, examples being Switzerland, Yugoslavia, and to a lesser
extent, Sweden. China's Cold War era use of passive defences, while on
an enormous scale, reflects its assessment of the numerical and
technical superiority of Soviet and United States air power during that
period.

The 1991 Desert Storm campaign saw 375 of Iraq's 594 Hardened Aircraft
Shelters, some well designed and built, destroyed by repeated attacks,
using 2,000 lb class BLU-109/B Have Void concrete piercing warheads.
Many shelters were destroyed in initial attacks, but many required
reattacking to defeat.

More recent
US designs such as the subcalibre 2,000 lb class BLU-116/B Advanced
Unitary Penetrator (AUP) and 1,000 lb class AUP-3M will penetrate up to
12 ft
of high density reinforced concrete. The GBU-39/B Small Diameter Bomb
is credited with the ability to penetrate 6 ft of high density
reinforced concrete. The Russian KAB-1500L-Pr
penetrator is credited with the ability to penetrate 30 ft of soil
overburden and then 6 ft of reinforced concrete.

A credible Hardened Aircraft Shelter built for the future, rather than
the past, must have the capability to defeat contemporary and future
upper tier concrete piercing weapons. This will require not only thick
walls and roofs constructed from dense and thick reinforced concrete,
but also technologies such as deflection grids designed to produce
warhead casing ruptures on impact, and entrance designs which are not
easily compromised by a guided bomb or missile entering at a very
shallow angle.

Superhardened large concrete structures were constructed in significant
numbers during the Second World War by Germany's Todt Organisation, to
protect submarine pens, ballistic missile sites, and as Flak Towers.
These proved unusually difficult to defeat. Some were destroyed using
British
12,000 lb Tallboy and 22,000 lb Grand Slam earthquake bombs, but many
were also never defeated [46][47].

The alternative of deep underground hangars, tunnelled into hillsides,
has been employed extensively by Switzerland, but especially China [48].

Figure A.7, A.8 Exterior view of
blast door arrangement at the inactive Luyan / Ranghe-Zhen airbase and
interior view of hangar. The recently expanded PLANAF airbase at
PLA-NAF Ledong / Foluo Northeast on Hainan Island is very similar in
design and can protect twenty H-6 Badger theatre bombers, each similar
in size to a larger Boeing 737 variant (Chinese
Internet).

Unfortunately, Australia lacks the geographical abundance of suitable
rocky hills and mountains which the Swiss and Chinese have so
adeptly exploited. Hardening of basing in the Pilbara, Kimberley,
Northern
Territory, and Indian Ocean Offshore Territories, will require pouring
prodigious amounts of concrete. Fortunately, the latter is something
Australian industry has considerable expertise and experience in doing.

The technology of Hardened Aircraft Shelters for single fighter sized
aircraft is mature, although there are no recent Western designs which
have been developed to defeat state of the art guided weapons with
concrete piercing warheads. Legacy designs developed during the Cold
War TAB-VEE program will not be sufficient, as the capabilities of
concrete piercing munitions have improved considerably since the Cold
War.

The greater challenge is however the development of Hardened Aircraft
Shelters capable of
protecting large aircraft, such as tankers or Airborne Early Warning
and Control (AEW&C) aircraft, as proposed by Stillion [24].

Stillion in his groundbreaking 2008 study
proposed large
shelters with 12 foot thick roofs
and 9 foot thick walls, modelled on the German submarine pen scheme,
capable of protecting either 36 fighters, or 12 large aircraft like
tankers, each. Cost estimates for such a shelter were around US$700
million in 2008, but capable of sheltering billions of dollars of
aircraft against a wide range of guided and unguided munitions.

The technology is clearly available to
construct individual Hardened Aircraft Shelters for fighters and large
aircraft, but by the same token, there are no “off-the-shelf” designs
available which have been proven in tests with representative state of
the art concrete piercing warheads.

Hardening runways and taxiways has historically involved the use of
concrete surfaces, and extensive redundancy, such as parallel runways,
or taxiways capable of use as temporary runways. A strategy used with
some success has been to connect individual fighter sized shelters to
runways with individual taxiways, forcing an opponent to cut every
taxiway to isolate all shelters.

A major consideration for basing upgrades in the Pilbara, Kimberley and
Indian Ocean Offshore Territories will be the durability of the
concrete employed, given the environmental exposure to salt water
characteristic of the region. Corrosion of ferrous metal structures in
proximity to the coastline is a well established problem for the
resource industry in this region. Careful choices will be necessary,
and it is likely that Ground Granulated Blast-furnace Slag (GGBS) high
strength concrete will need to be used heavily. This category of
material was favoured by Soviet designers in hardened military
installations.

An example of a hardened airbase concept sized for extant RAAF northern
bases is depicted in Figure A.9. It does not include a shelter for
large aircraft such as tankers.

The Marianas were first discovered by Europeans in 1521, during
Magellan's circumnavigation of the globe. There are conflicting claims
that Magellan named these islands the “Islands of Thieves”, or the
“Islands of Latin Sails”. The Marianas were inhabited since 2000 B.C.
by the indigenous Chamoru people, who are best known for constructing
stone megaliths.

Figure B.1 Guam imaged by Landsat 7
(NASA).

The Spanish, by then established in the Philippines, initiated
colonisation of the Marianas in 1668, when a party of Jesuits arrived
to convert the islanders to christianity. This was not a happy union,
resulting eventually in an indigenous insurgency, Spanish reprisals,
and a claimed collapse from a population of 150,000 down to 5,000. Most
of the Chamoru were relocated to Guam, while their vacated lands were
repopulated by Filipinos and Carolinians.

Figure B.2 Topographical
map of Guam (USGS).

Spain sold the Northern Marianas to Imperial Germany in 1899, while
Guam was lost to the United States a year earlier, in 1898, under the
treaty of Paris. The US retained control of Guam until 1941, when
advancing Japanese forces overran the island. The Japanese were by then
well established in the Northern Marianas, having occupied these at the
beginning of the Great War and administered them under League of
Nations mandate since 1918. The Japanese heavily fortified the
Marianas, using them as forward operating bases and integrating them
into the chain of defences around the Japanese home islands. Many
Japanese and indigenous Okinawans were relocated to the islands to
support the Japanese military.

The US invasion force first landed on the beaches of Saipan in June,
1944, losing over 3,000 troops while overwhelming the 29,000 strong
Japanese garrison. The Japanese counter-attack, the Battle of the
Philipine Sea, result in a rout of the Japanese fleet and the now
famous “Marianas Turkey Shoot” in which hundreds of Japanese naval
aircraft were lost.

Within weeks the Marianas were overwhelmed, and the
US initiated construction of a cluster of airfields, intended for the
basing of B-29 bombers for attacks on Japan. Tinian Island became the
nucleus of this cluster, with the four Japanese built runways rebuilt,
and additional two constructed.

Guam's Apra Harbour was rebuilt, and
the North and NorthWest Field sites on Guam was developed for B-29
basing.

Saipan saw the development of two B-29 runways at Kobler and
Isely Fields.

The first B-29 raid against Japan was flown from the
Marianas in late November, 1944. General Curtis E. Lemay's B-29s fire
bombed Japan's cities,
mined Japan's shipping lanes, and ultimately, delivered two nuclear
weapons, bringing the Pacific war to a close in 1945.

Figure B.3 B-29 Superfortresses
of the 462nd BG, taxiing to the
holding point at West
Field, Tinian, in 1945. Gen Curtis LeMay's B-29s burned down most major
cities in Japan, as well as destroying more coastal shipping than Navy
submarines did by mining shipping lanes (USAF).

With the end of World War II and slowly escalating Cold War, the
Marianas remained a strategically important site for the United States,
although bases in Japan and the Philippines were primary sites for
projecting power into Asia.

Guam's North Field hosted the only heavy
bomber unit to remain deployed in the Pacific after 1945. North Field
was renamed North Guam Air Force Base in 1947, and then renamed again
to Andersen AFB in 1949, after Brig. Gen. James R. Andersen. who was
lost while ferrying a B-24 across the Pacific.

Guam became an important staging point for aircraft deploying to the
Western Pacific bases. During the Cold War, Andersen AFB hosted B-36,
B-47, B-50, B-52, B-29, KC-97 and KC-135 aircraft, flown by Strategic
Air Command.

The escalating conflict in Vietnam saw Guam reprise its 1944-1945 role
as a bomber base, becoming a key operational base for B-52 raids flown
against North Vietnam, and their ground forces in the South.

In June,
1965, 27 B-52s launched from Andersen to fly the first of the long
running series of Arc Light sorties against PAVN troops in the South.
By early 1972, Andersen hosted 153 B-52s, being flown against PAVN
targets. The US Air Force states that no less than five miles of
taxiway were required to park these aircraft.

Figure B.5 The Vietnam conflict
saw Guam heavily used as a base
for B-52s
conducting Arc Light raids in the South, and later the Linebacker II
raids against the North. Up to 153 B-52s were flown at any time from
Andersen AFB (U.S. Air Force).

Figure B.6 Parking and managing
the flow of B-52s operating from
Andersen AFB
presented major issues during the intensive bombing campaigns of the
Vietnam conflict. These Buffs are about to sortie during Linebacker II (U.S.
Air Force).

The peak of operations from Andersen occurred during the 11 days of the
Linebacker II bombing campaign in late 1972, when 379 or 52% of the
total number of B-52 sorties flown launched from its runways. On one
occasion, no less than 87 B-52s took off in 1 hour and 43 minutes.

The end of the Vietnam War saw Andersen return to its peacetime role as
a strategic base and logistical hub for Western Pacific operations. The
base has played an important logistical role in every major contingency
since then, supporting operations in the Persian Gulf and Afghanistan.

Ongoing tensions with North Korea over its nuclear program, and the
growing militarisation of the West Pacific region has seen Guam's
prominence as a forward operating location increase.

For some years,
Andersen AFB has hosted continuous rotating deployments of B-52H, B-1B
and B-2A bombers. The February, 2008, crash of a B-2A on takeoff from
Andersen,
due to water ingress into the flight control sensors, occurred during
such a deployment from the bombers' home base in Missouri.

Guam currently hosts a range of US military facilities, divided between
US Navy and US Air Force assets. In the near future, Guam will also see
a substantial US Marines Corps presence, as units are relocated from
Okinawa in Japan.

Figure B.7 Andersen AFB is now
home to rotating detachments of
heavy bombers, home
based in the continental US(U.S.
Air Force).

Figure B.8 The B-2A
is now a regular visitor at Andersen AFB. To support such
deployments, a transportable hangar was designed, permitting field
maintenance of stealth materials(U.S.
Air Force).

Andersen AFB is currently hosting a permanent deployment of heavy
bombers,
rotated through the base from US based bomber wings. The base is also
frequently hosting fighter units, rotating through from fighter wings
home based in the US.

Regular exercises also see Japanese Air Self
Defence Force fighter units flying out of Guam, especially to make use
of the bombing range in the Marianas. The live fire range is located at
Farallon de Medinilla Island (FDM), 45 NMI from Saipan, the 200 acre
site being leased from the Marianas Commonwealth since 1975.

Andersen is now seeing a major construction effort to expand
facilities. New and planned facilities include a corrosion control
facility, fuel cell facility, hangar space and a “bird bath” to wash
aircraft, further hangars, a medical and dental clinic, a military
working dog facility, water tanks, and an RQ-4 Global Hawk UAV
maintenance complex. Also intended are a new bank, dining facility,
maintenance facilities, dormitories and base housing.

In strategic terms, Andersen AFB is a key geographical hub for the US
Air
Force, as it provides for coverage of South East Asia and Southern
China. Moreover, it sits outside the striking radius of most aircraft
based on the Asian mainland, unlike the bases in Japan and South Korea.

Naval facilities are centred around Apra Harbour, a natural deep water
anchorage on the western coast of Guam. The northern portions of Apra
are a civilian port and the main hub for commercial traffic through
Guam. The southern portions of the port belong to the US Navy. The
4,000 ft Orote air field strip is located on the Orote peninsula to the
west of Apra. The Navy operates Apra Harbour, the Guam Ordnance Annex,
Naval Computer and Telecommunications Station [NCTS] at Finegayan
Point.

The former Naval Air Station Agana has been disposed of and is
now Guam International Airport, with dual 8,000 ft runways.

Figure B.11 Apra
includes a valuable shipyard facility for the repair of naval
vessels. Depicted is SSN-711 USS San Francisco undergoing emergency
repairs at Apra after ran underwater collision with a seamount near
Guam in 2005 (U.S. Navy).

Figure B.12 Kilo
Wharf at Apra Harbour is a munitions loading facility. This
aircraft carrier is reloading its magazines at Kilo Wharf before
departing for operations (U.S. Navy).

Apra Harbour is a major Pacific hub for the US Navy, and includes a
submarine base built during the Cold War to support a squadron of
Polaris SSBNs, a naval shipyard with drydock facilities for the repair
of surface ships and submarines, Kilo Wharf capable of loading and
unloading ammunition ships to full draft, and handling aircraft
carriers. Apra has hosted, since 2001, SUBRON 15, currently comprising
the submarine tender USS Frank Cable (AS 40), and Los Angeles class
attack submarines USS Buffalo (SSN 715), USS City of Corpus Christi
(SSN 705), and USS Houston (SSN 713).

The Ordnance Annex Guam, formerly Naval Magazine, is a major munitions
storage facility located around 1 nautical mile south east of Apra. The
NCTS at Finegayan is located around 5 nautical miles north of Guam Int.
airport.

In strategic terms, Guam is now also a critical basing hub for the US
Navy,
not only hosting the submarine squadrons intended to patrol the West
Pacific, but providing a logistical node for replenishing surface fleet
assets such as carriers and supporting surface combatants with
munitions, fuel and other stores and provisions.

The next major development for Guam is the relocation of 8,000 Marines
currently based in Okinawa. The Marine Corps presence in Okinawa has
been a long running political problem for the US and Japan, as it has
become the subject of long running disputes between the ethnic
indigenous Okinawans and the central government in Tokyo. This has been
compounded by population growth in Okinawa resulting in creeping urban
encroachment and resulting noise complaints, a problem not unique to
Okinawa.

The relocation of the Marines is part of a much large package of base
restructuring and relocation measures, negotiated with the Japanese
Government in 2006.

These measures include consolidation of air force
basing in Japan, co-location of a JASDF air defence command centre at
Yokota in the Tokyo suburbs, and relocation of the Marines and up to
10,000 dependents to Guam. Japan will be providing a substantial
portion of the tens of billions of funding required for the basing
restructure. This effort is the single largest restructure in West
Pacific US basing since the withdrawal of US forces from the
Philippines at the end of the Cold War.

Okinawa is currently home to the III Marine Expeditionary Force, with
more than 23,000 Marines, supporting Navy personnel and dependents
located on the island. Component units include the 3d Marine
Expeditionary Brigade, the 3rd Marine Logistics Group, the 1st Marine
Aircraft Wing, the 3D Marine Division, the 31st Marine Expeditionary
Unit, and the Marine Corps Air Station Futenma. Marine Corps Air
Station Futenma currently hosts Marine Aircraft Group 36 and Marine Air
Control Group 18. Futenma is to be transferred to the JSDF as part of
the restructure, and new airfield was to be built offshore. This plan
has been complicated by a campaign conducted by ethnic Okinawans to
have all of the Futenma basing relocated to Guam, in direct opposition
to Tokyo.

Public briefing materials indicate that by the end of the restructure,
planned for 2012, the III Marine Expeditionary Force will be sited at
Guam. This will coincide with further growth across all US military
forces in Guam. The US Air Force is to increase the number of
transiently deployed fighters, bombers, tankers at Andersen, and will
likely permanently base Global Hawks at the site. The US Navy is to
increase the number of logistical vessels operating from Apra, and
provide more frequent transient berthing for carriers, as well as
basing new HSV hulls at Apra. The US Army is to locate an Air Defence
Battalion with 630 personnel and 900 dependents on Guam.

Overall estimates for deployed personnel and dependents indicate growth
from 2007 figures of 6,420 active duty personnel and 7,690 dependents,
to 19,230 active duty personnel and 19,140 dependents. This is a 170
percent increase in the total number of personnel and dependents hosted
on Guam. In addition, construction workers will be based on Guam while
the infrastructure is expanded.

The current planning for Guam is intended to provide incremental
increases in Air Force and Navy basing capabilities, and accommodate
the III MEF.

Perhaps the biggest longer term issue for Guam is that most of its
facilities are not hardened.

This has not been a problem in the past,
as no nation in the West Pacific had the reach to hit Guam, other than
Soviet strategic bombers and ballistic missiles, during the Cold War.

This is now changing, with China developing a strategic bomber force,
likely around indigenous new build turbofan power Xian H-6K Badgers,
deploying terminally guided Intermediate
Range Ballistic Missiles, and Tomahawk-class cruise missiles on nuclear
attack
submarines. Post 2010 Guam, like all US basing in the West Pacific,
will be under the footprint of Chinese ballistic missiles and cruise
missiles, all weapons with the precision to render these bases unusable
in combat.

During the Cold War the US conducted the Tab-Vee program across NATO
hosted bases to provide hardened aircraft shelters, the aim being to
deny the Soviets the option of rapidly crippling all US air bases in
the theatre using conventionally armed ballistic missiles and
fighter-bombers armed with cluster munitions, dumb bombs and some
precision guided munitions. No such effort was ever conducted in the
Pacific.

The strategic reality now is that China and other nations across the
region are acquiring a diverse and large warstock, spanning smart bombs
with a range of different guidance systems, standoff missiles, cruise
missiles and terminally guided ballistic missiles, the latter
exemplified by the DF-21 series.

The presents the US with the reality that its unhardened
West Pacific basing infrastructure will be directly exposed to the
largest global concentation of precision guided munitions other than
the US national warstock, in fact a much higher concentration than
deployed by the Warsaw Pact in the last years of the Cold War.

This amounts to a more dangerous strategic environment pitted against
basing infrastructure which is no more hardened than continental US
basing facilities.

The strategic consideration for Australia is thus simple. If the US
does not harden Guam and other West Pacific basing against precision
guided munition attacks, the result of any major regional conflict
could be a significant loss of US forward deployed capabilities as
these bases are crippled and rendered unusable.

B.2 Diego
Garcia (British Indian Ocean Territories)

Diego Garcia is a coral atoll located in the Chagos Archipelago, which
is part of the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT). Britain purchased
the complete Chagos Archipelago from Mauritius in late 1965. Until
then, the primary economic output of the islands were coconut
plantations, with the local population of around 1,000 persons
surviving on coconut production.

The local population was relocated after 1971, as the US Navy initiated
construction of the basing infrastructure on Diego Garcia.

The site was significantly expanded after 1980 to accommodate
prepositioning ships with materiel for rapid deployment forces, and POL
storage tanks. The expanded pier, capable of accommodating CVNs,
entered operational use in 1985. The expanded runway facility was being
used by B-52 bombers in 1987, and during the 1991 Desert Storm
campaign, in excess of 200 B-52 sorties were flown against Saddam's
Iraq.

Diego Garcia played a pivotal role during the 2001 bombing effort
conducted as part of the Operation Enduring Freedom campaign against
Taliban and Al Qaeda forces in Afghanistan. It was used by B-52H, B-1B
and B-2A bombers. Between December, 2001 and May, 2002, a detachment of
four 77 SQN and 2 SQN RAAF F/A-18A Hornets were deployed to the
airfield to provide air defence cover.

The airfield was used again during the Operation Iraqi Freedom air
campaign in 2003.

In 2010, Britain declared the Chagos Archipelago a Marine Protected
Area (MPA), making it inaccessible to fishing and habitation.

The Navy Support Facility Diego Garcia is home to the following
units [48]:

Maritime Pre-Positioning Ships Squadron TWO

Branch Health Clinic

NCTAMS Pacific Det Diego Garcia

Naval Mobile Construction Battalion Detachment

Naval Media Center Detachment Diego Garcia

Military Sealift Command Office Diego Garcia

Mission Support Facility

FISC Yokosuka

NAVFAC FE

36 MXG Pacific Air Force

Det 1, 715th AMOG (AMC)

AFSPC Det 2, 22nd Space Operations Squadron (ARTS & GPS)

AFSPC Det 2, 18th Space Surveillance Squadron (GEODSS)

Figure B.13 Topographical
map of Diego Garcia,
in the British Indian Ocean Territories (CIA).

Annex C
Regional Instances of Military Operations Other Than War

Figure C.1 Inundation, whether by
cyclonic or monsoonal rainfall, or
tsunami, is a characteristic feature of South East Asia and South Asia.
Northern Australia is no less exposed, with numerous instances of
severe cyclone damage, the most prominent being the destruction of
Darwin by Cyclone Tracy in 1974. Depicted Bandar Aceh following the
2004 tsunami (U.S. Air Force).

Figure C.2. High operational tempo
airlifts are a characteristic
feature of post disaster rescue and relief operations. Depicted is a US
Air Force C-17A delivering aid materiel into Bandar Aceh following
the 2004 tsunami (U.S. Air Force).

Figure C.4. Volcanic eruptions in
Indonesia
and the Philippines have repeatedly caused loss of life, population
displacement, economic damage and the destruction of infrastructure on
a large scale. The tectonic features of the region are such, that
future volcanic events are certain. Depicted the 1991 eruption of Mount
Pinatubo (USGS).

Figure C.5. Volcanic ash clouds
are a
serious hazard to air navigation, but can also produce severe
infrastructure damage, resulting from roof collapses, and blockages of
water management infrastructure. Depicted damage to Clark AFB in the
Philippines following the 1991 eruption of Mount
Pinatubo (USGS).

Annex D
Examples of Indian Ocean Offshore Territories Fauna

Parts of the Pilbara, Kimberley and Indian
Ocean Offshore Territories remain amongst the great unspoilt wilderness
areas of Australia, and are home to many endemic species, and many more
widespread species which are under severe survival pressure in other
parts of Australia, or the world. This annex contains imagery of some
of the species which are under threat, and two of the introduced
species responsible for severe damage on Christmas Island.

One often overlooked advantage of expanded military basing in these
areas is that within the boundaries of military bases human and animal
access can be tightly controlled, and introduced vegetation replaced by
the original species, restoring original habitats.

Figure D.4 The
abundant and endemic Christmas
Island
terrestrial Red Crab Gecarcoidea natalis has suffered a claimed 30%
population loss
due to invasive pest species, primarily the Yellow Crazy Ant
Anoplolepis
gracilipes. The Red Crab is a critical component of the local
rainforest ecosystem and its loss presents as an “ecological cascade
failure”, where loss of a species produces cascading damage effects
across the habitat (Jarich / Rebecca
Dominguez, Creative
Commons
Licence).

Figure D.5 Christmas
Island is claimed to
host the
world's largest single population of the terrestrial Coconut crab
Birgus latro, which can grow to a weight in excess of 4 kg, and has
a claimed lifespan in excess of sixty years.
While the
species is widespread across the Indo-Pacific islands, including the
Cocos (Keeling) Islands, it is hunted by
humans and uncommon in populated areas. On Christmas Island it is
seriously threatened by the Yellow Crazy Ant.
This example was photographed in 2006 on Christmas Island
(Jarich / Rebecca Dominguez, Creative
Commons Licence).

Figure D.6 The
introduced Yellow Crazy Ant, Anoplolepis
gracilipes, is a problem species across the north of Australia, but has
produced devastating environmental damage on Christmas Island (USGS).